The sounds of twilight

The cicadas are the first to sing and first to stop!

One evening in the office, I heard the calls of a barbet on top of a banyan tree. The monotonous kot-roo ... kot-roo sounded a lot familiar. The sounds of a barbet were one of the things that described the twilight in our childhood days in the villages.

The experience of twilight then was a lot different from what is now under the deafening sounds of vehicles and TV and other electronic gadgets. It’s a different world altogether that we miss in the middle of all the buzz.

When the day begins to fade into darkness, the world on the other side awakens with its own vigour. As the birds settle back into their nests with raucous calls, a cauldron of bats begin to board their night flight.