What is that sound?

Today I was riding my bicycle home after clinic at the Charity Hospital.

I was riding through Roria Talib, by a large Muslim seminary, and at a place where there were fewer houses. For a minute or so, just by chance, there were no scooters or motorcycles or motors of any kind close to me. And -- unusually for Varanasi -- there were several trees close by.

Suddenly I noticed a sound. "What is that sound," I thought. It sounded so familiar, like something I had heard in the past. But it sounded so out of place. What in the world is that sound?

It was the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of a tree.

I guess I heard that sound just two months ago in Thailand, but before that I think it has been over a year since I heard that sound.

Silence is a rare, almost impossible, thing where I live now.