A Central Park in your head!

How peaceful it is in here!” said a friend of mine as he sat in my living room.

“Peaceful?” I asked surprised as I heard the angry shouts of neighbours yelling their tanks were overflowing, my dog barking and even the sound of a child wailing, “It’s quite noisy!”

My friend went to the window and opened another shutter, “Can you hear the rustling of the leaves? You are so lucky Bob, you have a peepal tree just outside and what a sound, a thousand leaves whispering in the breeze!”

I could still hear the sounds of the waterman now yelling back at the neighbour who had shouted at him, my dog had stopped barking but I was ready for his next salvo, and the child had not stopped wailing. “Still yourself!” said my friend. “Cut off all the other sounds like a superior mike and listen only to these peaceful sounds!” I did, and have learnt to do it every day and enjoy the trees speaking gently even as they silently show me different colours of green.

My daughter who lives in Manhattan, New York, spoke to me the other day, “Dad, I wish I hadn’t shifted from my previous flat next to Central Park! From this new house I have to walk quite far to get there!”

Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.