We all have had sounds move us to familiar times and places. A song from childhood comes on and transports one back to the moment it made its first impression, emotions and all. But sound can take us to unfamiliar times and places as well. Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself, a sound seeming to emerge from history when you were close enough to notice or capture it.

Our recording comes from the streets of Lal Ghat, in Udaipur, Rajasthan. The area is a noisy mishmash - fruit and spice vendors, shops, the neighborhood travel agent standing in his doorway, soft-serve ice cream just a few doors down, scooters, taxi's, tuk-tuks, people, dogs, and cats everywhere going about their present-day business on the narrow stone streets. In the midst was a broom seller, an improbably old woman from another age with brooms made of switches, cutting a wake with her cart through the bustle and din at a slow walk, her haunting voice calling across millennia. The sound rose from the street noise and disappeared back into it after a few moments, a slice of anonymous history asserting itself and then moving on. 

The sound was a glimpse of that history – not enough contact to claim understanding, of course, but we are lucky for that glimpse, to witness two vastly different moments in time briefly coexist.

We wish you a similar experience. When it happens, enjoy the trip.