There is one sound that never really leaves our home.
The trains.
Our office is also where we live, in Civil Lines, Jaipur. From the terrace, you can't always see the railway tracks, but you don't need to.
You hear them.
Day and night.
Sometimes a long whistle drifting through the afternoon heat. Sometimes the steady rhythm of wheels crossing the rails before dawn. Sometimes, late in the evening, a train announcing itself from somewhere beyond the trees, long before it passes.
When we first arrived, we noticed every one. Now, we notice when they are absent.
People often ask whether the trains are noisy.
The honest answer is no.
Not anymore.
They have become part of the landscape, as familiar as the call of peacocks after the first rain or the temple bells that drift across the neighbourhood at dusk.
They don't interrupt the day. They punctuate it.
A whistle before breakfast. Another in the quiet of the afternoon. One more drifting through the evening as the light begins to fade.
Without realising it, we stopped hearing trains. We started hearing the rhythm of our days.
Sometimes we pause in the middle of a conversation while one passes. Then, just as naturally, we pick up exactly where we left off.
There is something unexpectedly comforting about that.
Perhaps because trains have always carried the same quiet promise. The possibility of leaving. The certainty that somewhere, someone is arriving. Every whistle carries that thought with it.
Somewhere beyond our garden wall, thousands of people are on their way.
A student returning home for the holidays. A family carrying boxes tied with rope. Children pressing their faces against the window as Rajasthan slips by. Someone beginning a new chapter. Someone coming back to an old one.
Sometimes we find ourselves wondering about them — where they are coming from, who is waiting, what is being said in the compartment as Rajasthan slips by in the dark.
The thought lasts only a moment.
Then the kettle whistles. A phone rings. Someone knocks at the gate.
The day quietly resumes.
From our desk, we often look up as another whistle echoes through Civil Lines. For a brief moment, our thoughts follow it beyond the garden wall, beyond the trees, and into whatever is moving across Rajasthan.
Then we return.
Somewhere, another train is already on its way.
We won't follow it.
We'll listen until it fades.
Then pour another cup of chai, and stay where we are.
The Charpai Life
