What you can hear at 6am in Sector 9.

I walked the loop from Sector 9-D round to 9-A last Sunday at 5:45. The sodium lights were still on. The plane trees that line the inner road haven't dropped yet — by the second week of May they will, but in April they hold. There was a stray dog asleep on the steps of one of the older kothis. He didn't move when I passed.

What I want to write down is what I heard. Because "quiet" is the word people use about Sector 9 — buyers say it, brokers say it, the journal pieces about old Chandigarh all say it — and the word does a lot of work that hides what's actually going on.

Quiet, but specifically.

It wasn't silent. It was the opposite of silent — the road was full of small sounds you can only hear because the bigger ones haven't started yet. A pigeon clearing its throat from inside a banyan. A rusted gate complaining as the milkman pushed it open at 9-C. The hum of an inverter from a kothi I've been inside twice — old Mr. Khanna's, he always offers tea, the inverter has been making that noise for at least four years.

This is the sound that disappears at 7:15 when the auto-rickshaws start. It's the sound the sector is when no one is asking it to perform. If you walk it at 11am on a weekday, you'll hear cars and AC compressors and a dog the next street over. You'll think it's louder than it is. You won't notice it at 6am because you won't be there.

“Quiet” is doing a lot of work that hides what's actually going on.

What this matters for, if you're buying.

Two things, mostly.

The first is that the kothis on the inner roads of 9 are quieter than the ones on 9-A's outer edge facing the Madhya Marg by a margin most buyers don't appreciate until they've spent a winter. The price spread between the two blocks is real but smaller than the noise spread. If quiet matters to you — and for some buyers it does, more than they're willing to admit — bias toward the inner kothis.

The second is that the moment someone tells you a sector is quiet, ask them at what time of day. The honest answer is usually a 90-minute window. Same sector, different sound at every other hour.

Three things I check now, that I didn't used to.

• Whether the property faces an inner road or a feeder. The feeders quiet down by 9pm; the inner roads were already quiet at 6.
• The age of the trees on the lane. Bigger canopies don't just shade — they absorb the high frequencies that make traffic sound closer than it is.
• Whether the windows are double-glazed. Most original Chandigarh kothis have single panes. It is the cheapest meaningful upgrade you can make after taking possession.

The dog.

On my way back the dog was awake. He watched me from the steps but didn't follow. The newspaper had been delivered and was lying on the porch behind him. The lights had switched off. I went home and made coffee and started writing this.

If you're thinking about Sector 9 — or you're not sure yet whether you want the inner sectors or the south Chandigarh ones, or the across-the-highway pockets in Panchkula — message me. I walk these on Sundays. I can tell you what they sound like.

— Sparshika