Childhood sounds

Walking out of the office the other day I heard a kitten mewling away. Normal occurrence I guess but it suddenly took me back 25 years. We lived in this rambling old house which happened rather than planned. This combined with a large garden meant that the house was always filled with various forms of wildlife. From ants to flies to the occasional crow and of course cats. We just couldn’t keep them away and my grand mom’s excessive fondness of all the cats meant that we had an army of them around all the time. They also established themselves in the various nooks this rambling house provided and the cats yowling away during mating season provided constant fodder to my nightmares, fun.

Got me thinking of course of other sounds I grew accustomed to.

Being from madras of course meant that the day started fairly early for us. The birds chirping away in the morning going at the mangoes was a constant.

For some reason all the houses used to have their radios on full blast, you could hear the synchronous intonation of “vande mataram” and keep track when you walked down the road. This was of course immediately followed by the venkatesa suprabhatham (yup lived in an area that was infested with tambrams). The hymns used to wake up the lord had the added effect of rudely getting me up many a day. Oddly enough in the odd chance that I come upon random strains of the same these days it has the immediate effect of calming me down.

The thud of mangoes falling from the tree.

Even earlier when I was fairly little we used to have a bunch of cows right next door. Never heard too much from them though strangely enough. But the guy who used to work there used to make quite a racket.

Milk cookers….the racket of hundreds of households going about getting their morning cuppa. Followed closely by the pressure cookers going off.

On my way to pick up milk in the morning (my one chore. Rub it in to the family even now) the little tea shops that used to open up really early in the morning, blaring tam music.

Oh the little temple in the street, used to have a festival every year. They made sure that everyone in the vicinity knew about it and more important dint forget it. The music and “devotional songs” used to be on pretty much from before you woke up and went on much after you turned in.

Fairly non standard sounds where I live right now. No wonder the mewling of that kitten took me right back. Am looking forward to encounter the other sounds too.