Shouting | Ramu Das

“Keep your voice down!” a woman in my neighbourhood shouted. She was telling this to some of her family members – husband, son, daughter, or whoever – in her flat.

Once again she cried: “I said lower your voice, stupid!”

But maybe that did not work, for in the next thirty seconds she exclaimed at the top of her voice: “You, I said lower your voice, don’t you understand it, you!”

This went on for a while. The woman’s voice resounded in the whole building. It was nighttime, around 11:30. Most people were quite. Another neighbour was playing some mournful Hindi song in his/her phone. But, because of the woman’s shouting the sound from the phone died down. The only thing that could be heard for a full ten minute was the woman’s voice asking someone to keep that someone’s voice down. But not even a faint sound came from that someone. All one could hear was “lower your voice” or “keep your voice down” from the woman.

A Thinking Man