As Indians do we have a different standard for defining 'noise', just as we are known to have different standards for tolerance to spice, hygiene, personal space, nosiness, know-all ness and every otherness?
I am on a break, in India soaking in all the different levels. I am recalibrating my tolerance levels to old known levels. I need to do this periodically so that I do not become too complacent and comfortable in my congenial adopted home and forget the fact that I need to get back one day. The orchestra that my neighbour conducts at 5AM beats the pleasant morning alarm chimes from my phone. This neighbour is a firm believer in washing all steel utensils before sunrise. She or he, difficult to guess the gender from the cacophony, uses decibels and not detergents for the washing. I doze off again when the steel-utensils-orchestra becomes the new normal, only to be woken up again by a rather strange noise. The noise is a cross between a cat getting strangled and the goods train passing through a tunnel. I realise it is again from the neighbourhood. I almost do a 'eureka' when I discover that the sound is generated by another musical soul who is clearing his throat, this time I am sure about the gender.
Although there is a construction site close by, the decibel level from the site is challenged by every animate and inanimate object around me. I wonder how the saints of the past and, if any, in the present, meditated in this eardrum-splitting environment. No wonder the celestial damsels were required to break their meditation, elsewhere a loud cracker burst would have done the job. And fireworks were what welcomed me into the new year. My last new year eve in India was about to celebrate its silver jubilee and I did not allow that by having the new year bash back home this year. The crackers started going off much before midnight, perhaps the clocks were a little fast for those early revellers. Once someone started, the others could not wait and within no time all joined in the I-have-better-fireworks contest. In my opinion, all the noise about placing controls on fireworks and pollution have only given more sound, fury and smoke to the fancy sounding crackers.
The reason behind my making noise about Noise was an experience I had one morning when I went to one of the corner shops to get some documents scanned. As I had almost fifty odd pages to be scanned and the scanner available did not have sheet-feeder functionality, I had to hang around for an hour while the documents were getting scanned page by page. There was a gentleman in the next shop who seem to be having a shouting match. I could only hear his loud tirade all the while and could not hear any responding voice. Out of curiosity, I went out to investigate, rather peek. To my surprise, I saw that he was having a phone conversation. I also realised that with the kind of free talk-time availability, this conversation, if it was one, would go on for hours. Out of consideration for the health of his vocal cords, I thought there was a need to react. Despite knowing well that any comment or objection from me could fetch an even worse verbal or physical reaction from him, I decided that something needs to be done. Through gestures, I communicated to him that he needs to tone down his voice. I am not sure why but there was an immediate positive effect. His voice came down to normal levels and he continued the phone conversation. Rest of my waiting time was spent in peace and I managed to hear the drums of the scanner. That set me off thinking if the tolerance or silence is the reason for such thunderous surrounding around us.
Have you also wondered why people must be so loud? Does louder mean more authority? Yes, if you are commanding a parade you need to be loud to be heard but when you are on the phone is it necessary. People tend to forget that Graham Bell had them in mind while inventing this wonderful device, which saves the trouble of shouting across distances. The decibel level seems to be directly proportional to the distance between the caller and receiver.
It was very interesting to note the UK has the following prohibited times on noise making: Monday to Friday: before 7 am and after 8 pm. Weekends and public holidays: before 9 am and after 8 pm. Note: The prohibited times apply when the noise can be heard from inside a habitable room of other residential premises. Any residential noise can still be considered unreasonable outside the prohibited times
Maybe we need to clamour to have such a rule in India without adding to the noise.
