Shout it out loud: quiet, please!

S OMEHOW IN the evolution of Indian democracy, the rights to be noisy and to
freely express oneself have developed hand in hand. The idea is that if I
can shout, I am free and we are still a functioning democracy. Be it a
marriage, a jagran, a birthday bash or even a funeral, there has to be
noise - loud noise.
Anubha Yadav

My family often recounts how when my sister was born, a nurse in the
maternity ward was so startled by my father's loud greeting that she crashed
on the floor in the hospital corridor. From TV to chatting with friends, we
like it when the decibel levels reach a dizzy high. And it's not only the
people in my house, but also the objects that claim their right to be loud,
especially the hair dryer and the washing machine.

A friend recently attended a Parsi funeral. She noted how peaceful it was.
But in the same breath she also wondered whether this kind of quietude could
lead to catharsis. This made me wonder: has 'awkward silence' graduated to
acquire a perpetually awkward status? Does noise comfort us?

As teenagers, we were told to sit with our eyes shut and our ears open to
record all the sounds around us. At film screenings. We even conduct
conversations as we watch a show. Such auditory invasions are commonplace.
Being a teacher, I know the feeling of competing with sms, mms and jazzy
caller tunes while striving to keep a class together. My Google search led
me to a report regarding an undertaker's phone ringing inside a grave as the
deceased was being put to rest.

Maybe every gadget should come with a booklet stating the socially
admissible rules. As we sing Lose control, I wonder whether we can place
within it the value of self-control.

phones ring during concerts and As we become more and more gadget-friendly,
we become more and more people unfriendly. Our cell Maybe a noise tax could
do the trick.

At times, we did hear the most amazing sounds, like the breeze rustling through
trees and the buzz of a bee. The most common sound on our list was
invariably the chirping of birds. I wonder which sound will be heard most by
kids today? A car horn, perhaps?

Most of us are honkoholics behind the wheel. This is regardless of whether
we are on a crowded road or an empty highway, in front of a hospital or
entering a car park. We have smoking zones, but no horn zones.

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