When I sat at the doctors clinic located at a residential layout slowly turning out into a commercial junction in Jayanagar, Bangalore, what I am bugged with was the unbearable noise, and those noises aren't supposed to be so loud in a semi-residential area like that.
The unending honking, the bullet sounds from the multiplying number of Royal Enfields, the unstoppable auto rickshaws, the impatient car drivers rising the accelerators, and the resonance these vehicles created literally shook the ground beneath me. I wanted to request a pair of earplugs unable to bear with the nuisance. Most annoying was the honking and the Royal Enfield's bustling noise. This noise has become a crazy trend in the last few years in Bangalore that every other chap would love to own one. I just hate that motorcycle for only reason that is its noise while many people love the way it has a noise. Why are we so obsessed with noise? Why are we thought to honk so much while rest of the worlds sees it as a nuisance? My first stint of driving began in the United States, and honking was the last thing to be done there but strangely here, honking at every other street turning is first basic. Why are we so immune to loudness?
Our emotions, our celebrations, our happenings, our films, our politics, and our funerals too are so damn loud. Loudness is in our DNA. The funeral drums and processions are so loud that they can wake up the dead corpse at times. Rest in peace is something very unsuitable to our funerals, rise in beat is perhaps the better word to coin.
Our emotions are no less in this order, be it any gathering, we love to explode our vocal cords.After every such event, most of us loose our voice because we have to talk at the highest of pitches. Weddings are the best example, be it the procession of the groom or the rituals of the wedding, everything should have ear deafening background music. Not to forget the fireworks that explode with loud noise. After all they must be heard by the next hundred street's residents.
Our prayers too are no exception, because we believe that God is high up in the space and for him to hear our prayers, we must have loudest of hymns. Here we Indians are so secular and equal that all the religions love to play their hymns and conduct prayers meetings in the loudest way possible. We are definitely better united in this matter.
I often think that our Gods must have slowly moved away from our planet unable to bear the loving loudest prayers. And we have planned mission to Mars too to not leave them in peace. What to say about the festival pandals which are a killer way to express our loudness. We believe the Ganesha in the pandal would incarnate to listen to the prayers but offlate I am sure he prefers to stay inside the temple shrine to keep away from the loudness. Pandals were more of a neighborhood gathering exchanging pleasantries and singing lord's hymns which now turned out into dance hubs which play latest film music, that too with fast dancing numbers and people cant wait to jump on the dais to dance to those tunes....needless to mention about the immersions of the idols...liquor floats like a river, fireworks explode like bombs, music is played in its highest decibels of sound and am sure thats when the lord Ganesh would decide to vanish to another universe unable to tolerate our chaos.
Having studied in a christian missionary school, I remember our prayer halls were a place of calmness, we as students couldnt move an arm or leg or sneeze or cough which would be distinctly heard in the quite silent hall. Most of the Churches were indeed calm and peaceful back in 90s, but now I guess we realised that Jesus is also unable to hear our prayers from the crucifx, so we decided to increase the volume and frequency of it so that he would bless us better. I am sure even Jesus would also have planned on a mission to Mercury or Venus by now. I always think that we scare our Gods with our over loud devotional emotion.
Last but very important louder people are our political representatives. Parliament is the place where our representatives sit and discuss our issues and how can we not expect some loud emotion when they after all are representing us. This is the best place to witness how our members relate so much to our noise and display the same there. Sometimes they even break the mics as they think their vocal cords can be louder than the so called mics there. How sincerely do these folks represent us is something that we all should agree.
I could go on and on and on with examples of our Loudness which is disturbing and debilitating to our eardrums. Even in the age of smart phones, we did not chose to reduce the volume but increase it and bring it closer to our ears.
If only our schools insisted on the 'Noise Pollution' lesson, we would have been saved partially. I conclude this while I am sitting in my porch hearing the little bird chirpings and soothing breeze.
Cheers
Jyostna
