Schoolyard sounds provide sense that normality is returning

A 1987 Indian silent movie shows the protagonist, an unemployed youth who has switched places with a drunk industrialist, unable to sleep in a five-star hotel suite in the city despite all the luxury.

He wakes up bleary-eyed the next morning and goes back to his rented tenement downtown, where he has kept the businessman in captivity, gagged and tied to a cot.

There, he takes out his old tape machine and records all the sounds of the surroundings, including the traffic and brawls in the neighborhood, as well as sounds from a tent screening cheap movies, before getting back to the hotel, this time with the tape.

As night falls, he sleeps blissfully amid the cacophony of noises coming from his constantly running recording.

When my family moved from the old town, located in a busy area, to a residential locality in my city which was calm and peaceful, I had some difficulty sleeping or concentrating on my studies. I didn't try the recording trick, though, while some friends did suggest that I should.

But I did miss those sounds, including that of the traffic and voices on the street.

Just like how, thousands of kilometers away from my hometown, I have missed hearing the schoolchildren at recess below my apartment balcony in Beijing for more than three months now, since the COVID-19 outbreak.

When I first moved into my apartment after arriving in the capital last April, I was relieved to find it was facing a school playground.

Every morning, I would wake up to the sound of chatter emanating through my window. I didn't have to set my mobile phone alarm to wake up, though I had to eventually rely on the handset when I started going for my morning walks.

It had become routine for me to spend some time on the balcony or near the kitchen window every day, watching the children and their pranks in the playground.

The sight was a joy to behold, of children screaming, throwing snow at each other (during winter, of course), playing basketball (the playground has four courts), or just standing in a line and singing the national anthem.

On returning from my walk in the morning, I would see crowds of parents or grandparents walking up to the gates of schools nearby, along with the children in neatly pressed uniforms, and seeing them off.

Crowds would swell again at the school gates in the afternoon, when the elders would come to pick up the children, with their clothes all crumpled.

It reminded me of my childhood days.

However, in the wake of COVID-19, a pall of gloom had enveloped the city, with schools wearing a desolated look. The voices had fallen silent.

But the last couple of weeks have seen some semblance of activity in the neighborhood school, with some schoolchildren, perhaps students from the higher classes, making an appearance in their tracksuits.

They seemed relieved to be at school rather than staying home attending classes online. I felt relieved to see them too. I knew none of them, but still I missed them.

The children were walking in the playground which faces my apartment balcony, or writing something on papers they were carrying while seated on stools lining the school's compound wall.

The activity was quite subdued compared with the previously boisterous atmosphere. The sounds weren't so much that they would wake me up or hold my attention, but they were nevertheless a good sign. An indicator that things are getting back on track.

It's just a matter of a few more weeks before the school will see full attendance.

Then it's time to say, "more sound and action, please".