The first thing that hit me was the quiet. Not silence—just the kind of stillness where the world isn’t in a rush. Where footsteps don’t echo off concrete, where the air doesn’t hum with engines and hurried conversations. It felt unnatural at first, like something was missing.
Then, slowly, the rhythm of the place revealed itself. A man at a tea stall pouring from an old steel kettle, the liquid arching perfectly into tiny clay cups. A woman sweeping her porch, pausing to wave at a neighbor. A shopkeeper leaning on his counter, watching the street like it was a living thing. Life moved here, but it didn’t sprint.
Back home, the city pulsed. It never let up, never let you be. Here, people stopped. They looked at each other when they spoke. They remembered faces, asked real questions, waited for answers. The place itself was nothing extraordinary—narrow streets, faded walls, the occasional honk of a passing scooter—but the people made it feel like something rare. Like the world hadn’t gotten to them yet.
Maybe that’s what cities forget. They grow, they shine, they sprawl into the sky, but they lose something along the way. The heartbeat gets drowned out in the noise. But in places like this, the pulse of life is slower, deeper—unrushed and unbothered by the urgency of elsewhere.
By the time I left, the quiet no longer felt empty. It felt full.
Leave a Reply