Criminal Offence This: Noise Pollution

After a few minutes of being surrounded by playful children bursting crackers, I ran home. My ears were bursting with pain from that meaningless noise from diwali bombs and rockets. Five more minutes of that noise and my weak ears would have gone deaf.

I am a no-crackers person since teenage. This year, my husband did not buy crackers for his own reasons. My visiting cousin who loves crackers did not insist on buying them too, so we managed a cracker-less Diwali and still enjoyed it. And enjoyed it better too!

But one flight downstairs of our apartment building, and the noise was killing. It is as if there were no norms at all in controlling noise levels. I could hear crackers bursting as late as 12 am.

For the last four days, pigeons on my building and the one across suffered the noise, just as dogs that got confused with the noise on the roads barked away frightened. As for the cats, they were nowhere to be seen around with all the noise.

Parents who may not want to burst crackers too, are indulgent with their children. Children on the other hand love crackers. They feel deprived when their friends get to burst crackers. I remember how colleagues and friends felt generous enough during the festival, and bought crackers for children who could not afford them. Great intention, but a deed that does not benefit either them (except for the temporary pleasure), nor the environment.

The only way one can get them to feel otherwise, is to teach them how their crackers hurt the environment. It's time schools inculcated the no-crackers spirit in them on a massive scale.

The real after effects of this festival I read this morning. A news piece spoke of how birds and animals bore the brunt of human pleasure for noise.

I am still confused as to how human beings can derive pleasure from noise that erupts out of burning some chemicals. Real joy should come through sharing and caring, especially during a festival that means the triumph of good over evil.

Our idea of celebrating the festival lights has gone astray in that respect. Is it not about time that we made noise pollution criminal?

All the noise around global climate change would have no meaning with such blatant violations!