The state of our noise pollution
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Shamsher Chowdhury
Most of us when we talk of environmental pollution, we think of air or water pollution, we think of the exhaust fumes emitted by motorized vehicles on ht street and factory wastes dumped into rivers or closed water bodies. We tend to overlook or ignore the cause and effects of high noise pollution that go on unabated especially in and around the metropolitan cities. As it is, our society is routinely surrounded by sounds that are unduly loud. Every now and then I wake up from bed with a loud bang of a door shutting down in one of our apartments in a high rise building located at one of the city centers.
The worst, however, are the sounds of all kinds of horns blowing on the streets day and night. I do not know of others but I am completely traumatized by this business of blowing of horns at full blasts on the streets by buses, cars and, of late, by motor cycle riders. To add to the severity of the noise, these motorized vehicles keep honking continually trying to gain advantage over the other in making a head way in the eternal state of traffic jam on the streets. The scenario is further complicated by all kinds of musical and hydraulic horns used by buses and some minibuses often called Human Haulers. The sounds often get to your nerves and the after-effects continue long after you return home and about to retire. At times I find it absurd when some drivers keep honking at a traffic signal when waiting for onward clearance for the vehicles to move.
Indeed slowly and surely we are turning out to be a nation that has no consideration about the health and well being of one another. So acute is the sound pollution even when I am asleep I often wake up due to some piercing sounds of horns of a car or a truck from some surrounding streets. I do not know of others but sound pollution has got the better of me. It has essentially affected my nervous systems. Today when I come out in my car for my errands, I keep the windows shut through the duration until my return home during winter or summer seasons in order to save myself from the onslaught of sound pollution more than anything else.
The other growing menace in aggravating the environment with undue sounds is caused by use and abuse of mikes at random. Over the years, I have travelled to many countries of the world both of the Third World and the developed west. No where have I seen such extensive use of the mikes day and night, although it is my hunch that the scenario in some of the remote villages in parts of India would be no different. The point I am trying to make is that it is never in use so extensively and in such an unruly manner like in Bangladesh. As many of you are aware in most developed countries you are not even allowed to play music or engage in loud conversations that has the possibility of disturbing the peace of your neighbour. On complaints from any one of the neighbourhood, members of law enforcing agencies would promptly appear at one's door accused of the indulgence.
Whereas in this very metropolitan city mikes are used full blast for all kinds of weird purposes like holding of musical concerts on roof tops of apartment buildings celebrating a marriage of one the inmates of the complex that often lasts right through dawn. Worst of all some residents (I have experienced it myself) even go the extent of using a mike within the confines of his or her apartment for a religious gathering or even holding a discussion meeting. This is indeed absurd.
Mikes and Megaphones are also used at random for all kinds of purposes like advertising sale of indigenous medicines, capable of curing common cold to cancer, playing all kinds of songs and deliberations of religious clerics, announcing deaths of people, of power outages so on and so forth.
Use of the mikes may be somewhat justified as used by the mosques calling people to prayers but I am not too sure as to whether or not series of mikes should be used at full blast within a radius of a kilometer. I am partially disabled and keep myself confined indoors most of the time. On occasions I have tried to listen to the Khutbas from nearby mosques during the Juma prayers. Invariably I failed, since the simultaneous loud sound coming out of several mikes at a time make it all too difficult.
Mikes are also used in announcing deaths of people of a locality, informing people of power outages. Ironically though it is often difficult to catch the actual message since the messages often conveyed in manner and style that is too fast, too loud and the language used is often unclear.
I find the use of mikes in cities including the rural areas to be somewhat reflective of the level of our poor taste and a mindset that is decadent. Mikes at full blast are often used at marriage ceremonies in rented halls located right in the midst of residential areas that often continue for more than a day making it difficult for those living in the vicinity to have a good night's sleep. I pity the people who live around the lake in Dhanmandi which has essentially been turned into an amusement park for the public. Throughout the day it is bustling with people from all walks of life talking and congregating for all kinds of purposes. There are food vendors, peanut sellers and people simply loitering aimlessly. On top of it every other day some sort of open air concerts are being held with mikes operating in full blasts from evening till dawn. You find yourself in a no sleep zone. This practice has now spread its wings into apartment complexes too as I have already mentioned above. Worst of all, the concerts often appear to be dominated by pointless shouting and jumping around that can hardly be described as music
With all the high rise buildings, extreme traffic congestion, the loud noise and chaos that you have to undergo routinely every day while living in this metropolitan city, for obvious reasons you would like to spend some time in a quiet environment in some corners on the outskirts of the city once in a while. Due to our pattern of climatic conditions you can do that only during the winter season and that too is marred by loud sounds of the mikes. You start from your house and sure enough you will come across bus loads of picnickers dancing in a truck or a bus to some cheap tunes of songs from local or Indian films with mikes playing at full blasts often interrupted by periodic .announcements no one knows to whose benefit. It is a rowdy scenario. Worst of all this continues even on arrival on the location and right through the return journey into town.
I would like to end this brief essay with a few stray remarks but not unrelated as such. You see we Bengalis are famously known for talking loud and it is my impression that in any gathering of hundred or two hundred particularly in a closed compound there is no need for a mike. Just look at any of the proceedings of our Parliament the way our lawmakers deliberate, (or is it shouting) truly speaking, we could even do away with the PA system.
It is my considered opinion that we must find a way out of this debilitating state of sound pollution that exists today both for the sake of mental and physical health of those particularly living the metropolitan cities. Given the will on the part of civil society activists, combined with due support of the government, the matter can surely be contained and duly regulated.
The write can be reached at e-mail: chowdhury.shamsher@yahoo.com
Most of us when we talk of environmental pollution, we think of air or water pollution, we think of the exhaust fumes emitted by motorized vehicles on ht street and factory wastes dumped into rivers or closed water bodies. We tend to overlook or ignore the cause and effects of high noise pollution that go on unabated especially in and around the metropolitan cities. As it is, our society is routinely surrounded by sounds that are unduly loud. Every now and then I wake up from bed with a loud bang of a door shutting down in one of our apartments in a high rise building located at one of the city centers.
The worst, however, are the sounds of all kinds of horns blowing on the streets day and night. I do not know of others but I am completely traumatized by this business of blowing of horns at full blasts on the streets by buses, cars and, of late, by motor cycle riders. To add to the severity of the noise, these motorized vehicles keep honking continually trying to gain advantage over the other in making a head way in the eternal state of traffic jam on the streets. The scenario is further complicated by all kinds of musical and hydraulic horns used by buses and some minibuses often called Human Haulers. The sounds often get to your nerves and the after-effects continue long after you return home and about to retire. At times I find it absurd when some drivers keep honking at a traffic signal when waiting for onward clearance for the vehicles to move.
Indeed slowly and surely we are turning out to be a nation that has no consideration about the health and well being of one another. So acute is the sound pollution even when I am asleep I often wake up due to some piercing sounds of horns of a car or a truck from some surrounding streets. I do not know of others but sound pollution has got the better of me. It has essentially affected my nervous systems. Today when I come out in my car for my errands, I keep the windows shut through the duration until my return home during winter or summer seasons in order to save myself from the onslaught of sound pollution more than anything else.
The other growing menace in aggravating the environment with undue sounds is caused by use and abuse of mikes at random. Over the years, I have travelled to many countries of the world both of the Third World and the developed west. No where have I seen such extensive use of the mikes day and night, although it is my hunch that the scenario in some of the remote villages in parts of India would be no different. The point I am trying to make is that it is never in use so extensively and in such an unruly manner like in Bangladesh. As many of you are aware in most developed countries you are not even allowed to play music or engage in loud conversations that has the possibility of disturbing the peace of your neighbour. On complaints from any one of the neighbourhood, members of law enforcing agencies would promptly appear at one's door accused of the indulgence.
Whereas in this very metropolitan city mikes are used full blast for all kinds of weird purposes like holding of musical concerts on roof tops of apartment buildings celebrating a marriage of one the inmates of the complex that often lasts right through dawn. Worst of all some residents (I have experienced it myself) even go the extent of using a mike within the confines of his or her apartment for a religious gathering or even holding a discussion meeting. This is indeed absurd.
Mikes and Megaphones are also used at random for all kinds of purposes like advertising sale of indigenous medicines, capable of curing common cold to cancer, playing all kinds of songs and deliberations of religious clerics, announcing deaths of people, of power outages so on and so forth.
Use of the mikes may be somewhat justified as used by the mosques calling people to prayers but I am not too sure as to whether or not series of mikes should be used at full blast within a radius of a kilometer. I am partially disabled and keep myself confined indoors most of the time. On occasions I have tried to listen to the Khutbas from nearby mosques during the Juma prayers. Invariably I failed, since the simultaneous loud sound coming out of several mikes at a time make it all too difficult.
Mikes are also used in announcing deaths of people of a locality, informing people of power outages. Ironically though it is often difficult to catch the actual message since the messages often conveyed in manner and style that is too fast, too loud and the language used is often unclear.
I find the use of mikes in cities including the rural areas to be somewhat reflective of the level of our poor taste and a mindset that is decadent. Mikes at full blast are often used at marriage ceremonies in rented halls located right in the midst of residential areas that often continue for more than a day making it difficult for those living in the vicinity to have a good night's sleep. I pity the people who live around the lake in Dhanmandi which has essentially been turned into an amusement park for the public. Throughout the day it is bustling with people from all walks of life talking and congregating for all kinds of purposes. There are food vendors, peanut sellers and people simply loitering aimlessly. On top of it every other day some sort of open air concerts are being held with mikes operating in full blasts from evening till dawn. You find yourself in a no sleep zone. This practice has now spread its wings into apartment complexes too as I have already mentioned above. Worst of all, the concerts often appear to be dominated by pointless shouting and jumping around that can hardly be described as music
With all the high rise buildings, extreme traffic congestion, the loud noise and chaos that you have to undergo routinely every day while living in this metropolitan city, for obvious reasons you would like to spend some time in a quiet environment in some corners on the outskirts of the city once in a while. Due to our pattern of climatic conditions you can do that only during the winter season and that too is marred by loud sounds of the mikes. You start from your house and sure enough you will come across bus loads of picnickers dancing in a truck or a bus to some cheap tunes of songs from local or Indian films with mikes playing at full blasts often interrupted by periodic .announcements no one knows to whose benefit. It is a rowdy scenario. Worst of all this continues even on arrival on the location and right through the return journey into town.
I would like to end this brief essay with a few stray remarks but not unrelated as such. You see we Bengalis are famously known for talking loud and it is my impression that in any gathering of hundred or two hundred particularly in a closed compound there is no need for a mike. Just look at any of the proceedings of our Parliament the way our lawmakers deliberate, (or is it shouting) truly speaking, we could even do away with the PA system.
It is my considered opinion that we must find a way out of this debilitating state of sound pollution that exists today both for the sake of mental and physical health of those particularly living the metropolitan cities. Given the will on the part of civil society activists, combined with due support of the government, the matter can surely be contained and duly regulated.
The write can be reached at e-mail: chowdhury.shamsher@yahoo.com