'City of peace' is anything but peaceful

By Ben Groundwater
Updated September 23 2014 - 3:23pm, first published 2:36pm

I've woken up to the strangest sound: silence. It takes a while to sink in. I lie there in bed for a few minutes trying to figure out what's different, what's missing. After a while the realisation dawns that the morning scene is lacking its usual cacophony of car horns, revving motors, yelling taxi wallahs and the occasional explosion of a backfire.