Although these sounds are a normal part of everyday life for Delhiites, they are anomalous in the suburbs of my hometown Melbourne. An ideal Melbourne house is a solipsistic fortress that is impenetrable to uninvited outsiders, undesirable noises and general happenings on the street. The fence clearly demarcates the public and the private.

I return to my apartment in Jangpura. I am now making my breakfast. Another kabariwallah cycles past. Kabariwallahs are by far the most audible of all who travel through our street and they yell in their own particular style. There is one that sounds like the ghost of a World War II amputee, another like an aging goblin, which contrasts with the adolescent kabariwallah who chokes out his call in a broken voice. The last one of the morning lot sounds like a dull broken record, his voice gone flat having repeated the word too many times.

As I pick up the newspaper and take my first sip of chai, the doorbell rings once, then twice, then thrice. Jesus! I spit out my tea and run to the door with a sense of urgency. But no one is there. I hear a raspy voice yell santra (orange). I look down from my balcony to find an old man wearing a dusty turban and a tattered dhoti. He balances a bike full of fruit on his hip. He rasps out the names of the fruits and looks up to me. A housewife on the top floor yells her order down to him and sends her servant down to receive it.

I close my eyes to briefly meditate. The toywallah blows his kazoo. He continues down the street with a wooden pole from which gaudy coloured plastic toys hang. The imitation Barbie dolls with their lurid yellow hair and wrongly pink skin dangle. I begin to get dressed. The doorbell rings again. I don’t answer it but walk to the balcony. The fruitwallah pushes his cart down the street.

I begin to brew another cup of chai. Silence. But the silence feels like an absence. I begin to hum to myself. I walk out to the verandah and look down. Not a wallah in sight. I continue sipping my chai and getting ready for work. Fifteen minutes of silence. Then it begins. A cacophony of wallahs caught in a traffic jam: broomwallah, bucketwaali, kabariwallah. ‘Sabzi! sabzi!’ ‘santra! santra!’, kazoos cackling.