The Layered Silence : Santosh Bakaya

The Layered Silence 

Santosh Bakaya 

Smug silence silently slipped 

into the room with a nonchalant air. 

it kicked off its boots and socks,

sighed luxuriously and stretched,

smiling slyly.

It looked quite amiable.

I loved the aura 

of this companionable silence. 

Not mocking us. But just observing us. 

Lips clipped. Hands clenched.

A tantalising mystique surrounded it.

 

You picked up a book, giving me a warm look.

I picked up another and flipped over a page,

returning your look with another loving look. 

Despite the silence, we were on the same page. 

The silence became loud. 

Louder. 

Talking away silently.

The silent yakking can be pretty irritating, 

you know. But this silence was not. 

You flipped another page, smiling in my direction.

The cat looked at us, 

questions swimming in her eyes. 

She reined in her purrs, hypnotised by silence. 

The silence that choked 

on its on unspoken words. 

And we smiled across the expansive silence, 

with a silent conceit,

 beating all stereotypes and busting all myths that two people sitting in a room, need words to communicate. 

In the distance, a ramshackle train chugged on 

Chuk chuk chuk. 

We looked at each other, with eyes that spoke volumes.

Silence ruled.

(Santosh Bakaya, PhD, is a renowned poet, academician, essayist, biographer, novelist, columnist, literary critic, and TEDx speaker. Internationally acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu, as well as her work on Martin Luther King Jr. She is the author of 32 widely celebrated books across diverse genres. Her TEDx talk, “The Myth of Writers’ Block,” enjoys immense popularity in creative writing circles.)