In India, we enjoy great FREEDOM. No doubt about it. People fight for their freedom. Human Rights, Women’s Rights, Education Bill etc etc all ensure more and more freedom for everyone.
But the greatest of all freedoms we enjoy (probably even as a Basic human right) is the freedom to make as much noise as we want.
I get up at 5a.m in the morning and take a stroll on the roads. The roads are empty with hardly a soul stirring. Even the street dogs are in deep sleep and they feel disturbed having to see a stranger (that’s me) walking so early in the morning. They bark feebly and get back to their cosy sleep.
Everything looks fine and beautiful. The dawn and the dark blue sky are soothing. I feel happy that the earth is engulfed in silence. The clock strikes 6a.m. Lo Behold!! The situation is changed. There is already considerable traffic on the roads. Dogs are full of energy running around barking at their loudest. Mami’s sleepily putting kolams outside. And there a loud speaker in a temple which blasts in full volume “Om Burba Vasuva” which keeps repeating atleast a 100 times.
Welcome to the world of Indian noise!! 
I return home and dreamily pick up the milk packet and go inside the house. Suddenly I get a jerk. The neighbour “thatha” has turned on the devotional cassette singing “Om Namah Shivay” with so much volume that the whole apartment can hear it. Ofcourse I cannot blame the noble intentions of the thatha to want to “put in some” religious fervour in un-religious people like me.
I am no exception to the rule. My mom says I have such a thunderous laughter that two houses away can easily spot that it was “Ammu’s hysterical laughter”. Then I knew why my neighbours always give me a weird look when I walk on the roads.
How can I forget the phone conversations. People even 10 feet away speaking on phone can be heard easily without much strain. Whoever invented the term “eavesdropping” was definitely not an Indian.
Added to this we have noisy festivals. This Diwali was a “Ear-Opener” for me. I was in deep sleep. A 1000-wala was lighted by the apartment kids at 6 a.m in the morning right below my room. I jumped out of my bed in a karate pose. (Ya, when I am alone in the house such kind of self-defence behavior just comes to me 
). The entire day, I could hear a bomb/cracker going off every 10 minutes. I am NOT joking. If my ears had a feeling, they would have wept copiously that day.
I had gone on a picnic with some kids to “Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary” in the Palakkad district a few weeks back. In those dense forests, teeming wildlife and beauty did I realise “How much NOISE the cities are full of”. We took a trek in the dense Evergreen forests (about a 8 km trail) and we had to maintain the utmost silence to spot a wild animal. It was when I thought, “Silence is beautiful”.
When do we get the freedom of Silence in India?
1 Comment
November 13, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Good rant. I guess we enjoy Noise. The movie theaters are so loud with their sound systems in full blare that my wife gets a migraine attack. we have stopped going to the cinema altogether.