There are two sides to every story and there are two sides of every auditorium. The partition between them is ‘the curtain’.

Our side

The larger of the two parts of the auditorium belongs to us, that is, the audience. It belongs to us because there, we do what we want to, or should it be the other way around?

Anyway, on our side, peace reigns — well, we have comparatively more peace than the other side does. Just an occasional cry from an infant, some tens of mobile phones ringing simultaneously and at least one person quarrelling with the one on the other side of the line, women telling one another about their clothes’ catastrophes, men saying they would miss the news bulletin at nine, irritated ones complaining about the traffic, the pitter patter of little boys and girls running up and down the aisles, their mothers shouting instructions at them and a couple more sounds. Doesn’t sound very quiet, does it? But don’t forget the other side.

Their side

Behind the curtain, the world is different. It seems as if a disaster would befall all the people there if everyone didn’t just move from one place to another in long strides, each person worrying about the most unimportant things.

For example, if a play is to be presented, one of the in-charges will be running across the stage, telling someone to shift a part of the props slightly towards a particular side, the command will be fulfilled and the arrangement will be left looking worse than before.

If it is a speech contest or a prize distribution ceremony, a woman will be worrying about the bouquet to be presented to the chief guest. She will change the position of the flowers, untie and retie the ribbon, straighten the sheet covering the stems, and in the end, someone would accidentally hit her elbow, the bouquet would fall to the floor and the flowers would get squashed.

Then there would be a man, who, at the last minute, would come to know that four hundred and sixty-eight uninvited guests have shown up and that arrangements needs to be made for them. However, soon, to his intense relief, he would be informed that over seven hundred people decided not to attend the function. The man would take a sigh of relief and after a few moments, his mind would be troubled as to why people were not taking interest in a ceremony which deserved to be broadcast on TV.

As for the host, they will be in dire need of someone who could demonstrate breathing exercises. The performers will be seen either looking very nervous or taking selfies.

On every such occasion, the clock ticks continuously (like everywhere else) and the time of the beginning of the show comes near, nearer, dangerously close, 3,2,1, that’s it! And that’s that. Who cares about the time? Okay, some people do, but that doesn’t make much difference there.

On our side, however, we always expect something to happen at the time the show ‘was’ to start and every time, we are reminded that most of us aren’t punctual enough not to cause inconvenience to others.

So, we wait, and we wait and after ages, the curtain finally rises and silence falls.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 4th, 2018