Every weekday, Rohan squeezed into the 8:12 slow AC local from Borivali, one earbud already in before the doors even slid shut, a podcast running before the train had cleared the platform, never once close enough to hear his own breath over it. The rest of the compartment — an elderly man's fingers moving over prayer beads hidden in his pocket, a little girl humming against her mother's shoulder, two students arguing cheerfully about a cricket score near the door — stayed background noise he'd stopped hearing years ago.
His commute was a race against nothing in particular. Reply to emails. Scroll the news. Watch three seconds of a video before swiping to the next. Reach Churchgate. Repeat.
Just past Andheri, his phone screen went black.
Battery: 0%. No power bank, no charger, and most of the hour-long ride still ahead of him.
Rohan sighed and put the phone away like it had personally let him down, already counting the stations until he'd have something to look at again.
With nothing else to do, he looked up instead.
The wheels underneath him kept their own rhythm — tak-tak, tak-tak, tak-tak — steadier than anything that had ever come through his earbuds. The little girl's humming rose and fell somewhere underneath it, matching the wheels without trying to. He noticed, for the first time, that nobody in the compartment was actually in a hurry the way he always assumed everyone was. The old man's fingers moved over his beads at their own unhurried pace, one after another, the whole ride.
As the train slowed into Dadar, pigeons scattered off the platform edge in one motion, a temple bell rang faintly somewhere past the station roof, and a chai vendor's call drifted in through the open doorway — "Garam chai, garam chai" — before the train pulled away and carried the sound off with it.
The city hadn't gotten any quieter. Rohan had just started listening to it.
Somewhere between Dadar and Charni Road, without deciding to, he noticed his own breath had settled into the same rhythm as the wheels beneath him — in through one stretch of track, out through the next, on and on, unbroken, all the way toward Churchgate. He'd never once, in years of taking this same train, listened to his own breathing. It had simply been there the whole time, running underneath every podcast and every scrolled headline, waiting for him to notice it.
Nothing outside the window had changed by the time the train pulled in. The platform was as crowded as ever, the announcement echoed the same way it always did, a stranger's elbow still found his ribs on the way to the door. But under all the noise he'd spent years trying to drown out, there had been a second sound the entire time — steady, unhurried, entirely his own, asking nothing of him but to be heard.
He stepped onto the Churchgate platform and didn't reach for his phone once, not even an hour later, after it sat charging at his desk, fully powered and completely ignored.
Sometimes the loudest sound is the one that leads us back to ourselves.
Why did Rohan's phone stop working during his commute?
Name any two sounds Rohan notices once he puts his phone away.
What does Rohan notice about the people in the train compartment after he starts looking around?
Why does Rohan choose not to open his phone again, even after it is charged at his desk?
What does the rhythm of the train's wheels come to represent for Rohan by the end of the story?
In your own words, how does Rohan's idea of "noise" change during the story?
Match each word with its correct meaning.
|
Word |
Meaning |
|---|---|
|
1. Squeezed |
a. Moved apart quickly in different directions |
|
2. Drifted |
b. Fit into a tight space |
|
3. Unbroken |
c. Calm and without rushing |
|
4. Scattered |
d. Moved slowly through the air |
|
5. Unhurried |
e. Continuing without stopping |
Word Bank: squeezed, drifted, scattered, unhurried
He __________ into the crowded train before the doors closed.
The smell of chai __________ through the open compartment door.
The pigeons __________ as the train arrived at the station.
She walked at an __________ pace, enjoying the morning.
Write the numbers 1–5 to put these events in the correct order.
☐ Rohan's phone battery dies just past Andheri.
☐ Rohan boards the 8:12 local with his earbuds already in.
☐ The train stops at Dadar, and Rohan hears the chai vendor's call.
☐ Rohan notices his breath matching the rhythm of the train's wheels.
☐ Rohan reaches Churchgate and leaves his phone untouched.
Think of one sound in your everyday life that you usually ignore—traffic, a fan, birds, or your own footsteps.
What sound did you choose?
What do you think you would notice if you listened to it quietly for one full minute?
Write 2–3 sentences about your experience or imagination.
Complete the worksheet first and then check your answers.
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