Keeping noise pollution in check is the topic of the hour in India — thanks to a couple of celebrity tweets ... And now everyone is airing his or her opinion on it. Shouldn’t we make a concerted effort to keep decibel levels down, they argue. Shouldn’t we acknowledge that loud horns, loud voices, loud music, etc., cause insomnia, raise blood pressure and trigger other health problems? Shouldn’t late nights and early mornings at least be sacrosanct?
While the debate rages on social media, I look around at our gated community and think that we are lucky to be located at the top of a little hill, at a kind of dead end, with ups and downs and ins and outs that keep us away from the noise of the traffic on the main roads. If we hear loudspeakers, they come from a distance and are fairly muted.
Our apartments and houses have a largely ex-military population of seniors who practice the early-to-bed and early-to-rise adage to set an example for the many school and college-going children/grandchildren around. Thus almost everyone goes to bed early — or at least retreats into a quiet space. We do not party often, there is no loud music late at night or into the wee hours and we have no major complaints.
But we do have our share of noise at other times: Our little island of greenery attracts early-morning walkers from the surrounding areas and from our own houses. They are out pounding the pavements (or actually, the paved roads) at a pretty unearthly hour, mostly with companions, and definitely with many topics of discourse and debate in mind.
Thus, if we are light sleepers, we awaken to those animated — and loud — discussions that waft in through our windows: Demonetisation, “black money”, the budget, state elections and at this time of the year, a blow-by-blow account of the Indian Premier League match of the previous night ... There is laughter, some of it raucous, and we drag ourselves out of bed and consider pounding those loud-mouthed “offenders” into the pavement.
Then, above the sound of their voices, we hear the strident and jarring call of another species our pocket Paradise in the urban landscape is host to: The peacock. Almost as if there has to be something to balance their beauty, peacocks are not blessed with melodious voices — but their call is distinctive, and because we recognise it at once, it tempts us to get up and get out of the house. We hurry onto the road to catch a glimpse of the birds — and without our realising it, we hail acquaintances and friends at full volume, we slip into animated conversations with them, we laugh at their jokes and ours, we speak to a couple of friendly dogs that decide our “chats” with them were too brief and therefore set up a howling ... and we have joined the ranks of the “offenders”.
What’s more, if a sleepy face glares at us out of a window or from a balcony, we wave out insouciantly and beckon them, firm in our belief that they too should reap the benefits of an early-morning outing, like we do.
“Don’t miss this!” we shout, cupping our hands over our mouths to give a megaphone effect, and then we turn back to watch a peacock dance with his tail feathers spread in a semi-circle spanning at least six feet from side to side. His peahens pretend to be bored. We humans, however, clap and click as the peacock preens for his appreciative human audience.
We too assume that because we are awake the rest of the community should be as well.
So, yes, “keeping down decibel levels” is the topic of the hour — and like everyone else, we air our opinions on it at top volume.
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
