Today on a Sunday, I finally caught up with all the entries, starting from the end of the first week of February. This became possible because of a strange set of circumstances. I had gone to Bangalore yesterday for a conference and since I had only one lecture to deliver in the afternoon, I found myself reasonably free to finish a whole lot of pending work related to my Man from Matunga persona. I waded through tons of emails, did some site maintenance and gave final touches to some previously written essays. Saturday night is the one night I spend at my in-laws these days, so that I can share the night with WFM. When I landed in Mumbai, I suddenly came down with a bad cold that had me sneezing and dripping continuously. Not knowing whether it was allergic or viral and not wanting to take chances with the babies I decided to spend the night at home rather than with the babies. This gave me some more time on my laptop till midnight. I tried to wake up at 3.00AM for the World Year chat, but the next thing I knew it was 7.00AM. I then logged on and ran through all the entries at World Year starting from around the 7th of February; I am now reading them offline.

I faced one problem though, which I am sure Tony can address. When I am reading an entry, I can't find a way of going to the next day's entry from that page, since the "Previous" and "Next" buttons only lead to the previous and next entries of that particular contributing pair. This makes reading successive daily entries a bit of a pain.

Fiona and Elizabeth were the perfect pair, always in sync, writing about the same topics and almost always hitting the same word count. For some reason, Elizabeth is now gone and has been replaced by Catherine. Anita too has gone and Mike now has a new partner bringing us his perspectives from Bosnia and the surrounding region. Mike couldn't have asked for a more different partner. The Sunday slot now has Heyoka and Magnus, both of whom come from relatively non-conflict countries. From my point of view, the only conflict countries in the project are India, Russia, Bosnia and probably Northern Ireland. But this is only when we look at conflict from a macroscopic, political and social angle. At a microscopic and personal level I guess, all of us face conflict in some form or the other and to that extent all of us can be said to come from conflict countries.

It is an interesting group of people. Tony, who like the CEO of his new company is our CEO keeping us together, working with us and putting in so much effort for the project. Fiona, the ever-pragmatic lady from Northern Ireland, giving us a unique viewpoint of life in that country. Victoria who has been so excited about the positive changes in her life that this shines through each of her recent entries whether or not she writes about it. Victoria incidentally is the only World Year person who I have had non-net contact with; I spoke to her when I was in Germany some weeks ago. Mike, my buddy from New Zealand, with who I share a common interest in cricket, who somehow every week comes up with something new and interesting. Dominic with his teenage angst and Cold Heels, the "international man of mystery" with his eclectic writing. Heyoka and Magnus who have just joined in, both so confident and sure of themselves. And lastly Nancy, my partner who brings amazing experience and level-headedness into her writings, whose use of the language leaves me open-mouthed, spurring me to constantly improve the way I write.

This group is so totally different from any group that I have been associated with, probably because it is poles apart from what I do in life. When I decided to write just over seven to eight months ago, I had no idea that I would continue writing so regularly. Apart from the website and my notify list that keep me going, this group ensures that I sit down at least once a week and write. A kind of support group, for which I am extremely grateful. I just wish I could participate in all the chat sessions that have been held so far, but the way things are and the time differences somehow have made this very difficult.

I have no idea where the project is headed. Tony is the most enthusiastic while Magnus brings with him quite a bit of cynicism. The rest of us I suspect are somewhere in between. For whatever reason the "Discuss-the World" forum has never taken off as an email group; maybe the online forums will make a difference. According to Tony we are doing well with respect to the number of hits that we are getting, but unless these are translated into meaningful dialogues and discussions between readers and writers, it makes the whole experience a little bland. I hope the project reaches the heights that Tony had originally envisaged.

All in all though, it feels good to be part of this project.

City wind, of course, sounds different from country wind.

We have a spinner on top of our house and it creates a lovely, working-factory sort of sound. One it really gets going on its lopsided way, it whines and howls and keens. If the house weren't anchored, it would surely take off and fly. A very comforting set of sounds if you are used to city noises.

This afternoon, there were were howling, yowling, whoooo-inng winds that thumped the big metal doors against their locks and blew all the metal and wooden chairs on the roof against each other. The metal barbecue on the metal fire escape kept rocking against the wall, and the people across the alley way were having a drunken party with firecrackers.

I have some country friends visiting this weekend, and I hope that the place quiets down a bit for their arrival and their sleeping enjoyment. They really don't appreciate the urban cacophony that I totally take for granted.

Every weekend in Venice, it seems, is an occasion for a drunken party with inappropriate music. Suddenly, '50s background "sophisticated" music sounds are about: weird hipster stuff, Playboy-Dean Martin-Jackie Gleason silken strings stuff. It portends a grown-up-ness that never came to be, but these kids nowadays don't know that. Some of it was playing last night, in-between some ancient disco stuff. A old-fashioned Rob Roy amidst the beers. Another party that we didn't go to.

I've always liked human sounds and trusted them much more than nature sounds. The howling of the wind in a lonely field will never warm my heart, but the howling of a police siren has always lifted my spirits. Here they come to save the day! Sensible, taxpayer-paid help is on the way -- something can and will be done, you will not have to suffer any longer -- it's Crusader Rabbit to the rescue.

If I have to have a large object fall on me, I'd rather it were a construction crane than a half-rotten tree in Thoreau's woods, no matter how pretty it looks in there in the dappled sunlight. Whatever woodland creatures that would come creeping around would be there for one thing and one thing only: to make me their meal. And by the time they had finished me off and my suffering bones were picked clean in the heartless quiet, people would still wonder: Did a tree really fall on her if nobody was there to hear her scream?

But in the city, in the lively city, a huge mob would form and you would see your plight mirrored in all the gathered faces and they would come around to shoot you full of painkillers and to hold your hand until the cameras took your picture and the jaws of life came along to make you a big celeb.

The sirens and the horns sound like so many nature sounds to me after a while, only it's a type of nature that's not as irritating or as relentless. No matter how many times a man will bleat his horn in a traffic jam and no matter how many silly sheep behind their wheels join in once the first note is sounded, the racket will stop soon enough -- or at least, you feel you could reason with it and make it stop somehow. Not so with the swarm of black crows outside my bedroom window.

No human intervention can ever stop their incessant, strident carr, carr, caw branching out from tree trunk to tree top -- the loud, argumentative calling that crackles through the cold windowpanes each and every morning without fail and snags my silken sleep away. And the throaty bubbles of the doves, quaint at first, but finally drumming, drumming, get to be more unnerving than the throbs and bubbles of sound that come near when an ambulance is approaching and then soften and echo as it recedes into the distance.

No such luck with the doves -- they stay in one spot and inhumanly burble for hours and hours, and no amount of Saturday morning cartooning will ever turn their noise into the billing and cooing, lovey-dovey sounds we pretend it to be so we can stand it. No, I am most certainly not a country girl.

I'd rather have the sounds of an ambulance come doppleganging by any day, sirens throbbing and lights pulsing, speeding red blood and powerful drugs and lifesaving air to whoever's in trouble, than the nonstop din of crickets and frogs and howling coyotes.

I am a lucky denizen of the city, and I hope my guests are comfortable in our little square of noise. I hope they feel as safe and secure when there's plenty of wholesome city noise outside their guest-room window.

I hope the noisy birds give us a break for a few hours. Can't hear the garbage trucks and the car alarms for all that tweety caterwauling.