The Sounds of Silence

This weekend’s outing was a search for silence. As we have shared in many of our blogs, noise pollution in our urban, high-rise lifestyle in Bangalore is overwhelming. The traffic noise that permeates our daily living is a non-stop assault of engine roar and honking horns. The evening is filled with the barking and howls of dogs engaged in continuous turf warfare. The many Hindu festivals bring out loudspeakers blaring melodious Hindi songs for which we have not yet acquired an ear.

What does silence sound like? Our two stops today provided a response in very different ways.

We drove to the western edge of sprawling Bangalore to visit the Nrityagram Dance Village. The dance village was established in 1990 by Protima Gauri. Gauri was a wild child and prominent model in the 1960’s. In her mid-twenties she was taken with the graceful style of dances rooted in the temple traditions of the northern Indian state of Orissa. Henceforth dedicated to dance, Gauri founded Nrityagram with a “dream of building a community of dancers in a forsaken place amidst nature; a place where nothing exists, except dance; a place where you breathe, eat, sleep, dream, talk, imagine - dance.”

Dreams do come true. Nrityagram is a soothing environment. Trees shade rough stone walkways that lead to a dance hall, outdoor yoga center, fruit and vegetable gardens and rustic cottages for resident students. The students follow a lifestyle based on the ancient gurukul tradition. Accordingly, they take care of their guru (teacher) by tending their gardens, cooking, cleaning and devotion to study. At the end of the dance lesson we observed, the students leaving reverently paused before the guru’s seat, folded hands as if in worship, bowed and departed.

We lunched at the open air restaurant with the sound of leaves swaying in a gentle breeze and the peaceful sounds of a small water fountain nearby. We found the first rhythms of the sounds of silence.

Reluctantly we departed for our next destination a short distance away, the Golden Palms Hotel and Spa. Golden Palms is the very upscale retreat for the Bollywood crowd. The grounds of this resort are covered with towering coconut trees, fountains of King Neptune and a swimming pool the size of a city block. At this spa resort, one does not get a massage; one indulges in spa therapy. Therapy packages include steam, sauna, swimming, Swedish massage, oriental foot reviver, Indian papaya & rose body glow, crystal salt scrub, Thai massage, Cleopatra milk bath, a meditation session and more. If ala carte decadence is your pleasure you can select from massages such as Palms Ayurveda, Aromatic Body Bliss, Balinese Massage, Holistic back, Face and Scalp and more.

Needless to say one’s pleasure is directly related to one’s wallet. But if one is seeking the sounds of silence, Golden Palms has its own beautiful rhythms, away from the cacophony of the nearby city.