💬 Heard a pressure cooker whistle in my building corridor and just stood there

Last Tuesday at 7:10 pm I came home from work and stepped out of the elevator. Somewhere down the hall a pressure cooker whistled. 3 times, then a long one, the way it does at the end. I stopped walking. My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor and I didn't pick it up. I was thousands of kilometres from my mother's kitchen, but I could almost smell the dal. I stood there for maybe a minute. A neighbour opened her door and asked, are you okay? I said, yes, sorry, that sound. She looked at me, then at her kitchen, and said, you want to come in? I said no, no, thank you. I picked up my bag and went into my own flat. It was cold and silent. I made instant noodles in the microwave. Poor ending to a good moment. It's strange because I didn't miss the cooker when I lived at home. It was loud and it woke me at 6. My mother started the rice at 6:30 and the whole house heard it, probably the whole street too. I used to put a pillow over my head. 11 years ago I would have paid someone to make it stop. Now I'd pay someone to bring it back for 10 minutes. Since then I hear it most evenings around 7. I walk slowly past her door now, on purpose. I haven't said anything. She has no idea she's my favourite part of the building. What sound does that to you? Not the big ones like a wedding band. The small ordinary ones. Mine is a cooker. Somebody else's must be a bicycle bell or a ceiling fan.

Three whistles and a long one, and your bag hitting the floor, I can see it. The smell of tadka in a corridor once stopped me at my hostel door in Pune, and I stood there until the warden asked if I was lost.

For me it's kids playing cricket in a lane in the evening. The tok of a tennis ball, someone shouting out. Our building in Riyadh has a car park where the boys play after Maghrib. I can hear them from the balcony. Some evenings I just stand there with tea and listen. My wife thinks I'm checking on the car. I'm not. In my head I'm 12 again, back in Chanchalguda.