Lajpat Nagar, South New Delhi, India - 1:18pm

The loud honking of a horn, enough to awaken the deepest of sleepers on the planet, pierced every pair of ear that was within a kilometer radius. The crowd crossing the street seemed infinite and oblivious of the truck that had been halted there for more than fifteen minutes. In the heat of day, its engine seemed to add enough noise to muffle the buzz that emanated from the deals made and deals broken from every street vendor there was in this whole stretch.

A screaming old lady came rushing from the crowd holding something that seemed to be defected. She was pursuing a man of small stature who easily snaked his way through the people. She screamed louder as he advanced away from her. When he was out of sight, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Singing for the shoppers, a blind man tightly held on to his microphone as the speakers did its job to amplify his voice. He was seated on a mat as he tried to render a folk song about life and love. He smiled every time he heard a coin hit the bottom of his can.

The truck continued to honk its horn. The crowd’s buzz seemed to be as endless as the Indian sky. The old lady continued her bouts and screams. The blind man serenaded everything with his voice while the can continued its clanging. Everything seemed to scream, everything seemed too chaotic for a tranquil moment, but he saw none of it, he heard nothing for she was there, at the dead center of it all, with her smile that was enough to silence the noisiest, most chaotic of places.