Horn Not Ok Please: Sounding off on Mumbai's nuisance noise

You are stuck in traffic in Mumbai. A sea of vehicles surrounds you. You try to shut out revved-up engines and impatient horns. The increasingly frantic crescendo, much like the grand finale from a work by Rachmaninov, makes you want to shoot little darts tinged with South American poisons at the drivers of the cars around you or pull an Ambani and hail a passing helicopter.

Interrupting your desperate escape to your happy place is your autorickshaw guy, honking. He presses his thumb on the button, holds it there and doesn't let go.

Mumbai's three-wheeled menace

After years of traveling by public transport, I have realized it is the autorickshaw driver above all who really loves to blow his own horn at miles of insurmountable traffic spread out in front. There is no possible escape route in sight. Yet the indefatigable driver insists on repeated blasts of his horn, thinking this will solve the problem. What's the point? I often ask them. Is the traffic ahead going to magically part like the Red Sea before Moses and let you through? You think the people ahead are all stuck in one spot on purpose, just to bug you? A non-committal or puzzled look or a lecture all the way to your destination are the only two responses.

I sit in the midst of all the cacophony, slowly grinding my teeth, considering banging my head against the side of the seat to ease the pain. Or getting those embarrassingly large noise canceling headphones. Or writing a letter to car manufacturers. "Dear Sirs, Can we just do away with horns altogether? Are they really needed?" Apparently they are, as one autorickshaw driver I asked said, as in the absence of horns, drivers would end up running down most pedestrians. 

Sound mapping Mumbai

Peace is hard to find in Mumbai. Out on the road, it is the vehicles that destroy peace but when you are back home (even if you are lucky and your home is situated away in a quiet lane far from busy roads), it's the saw-and-hammer din from the construction site in an adjacent plot of land that will slowly kill you. I have an apartment block coming up next to my house. Work began a year after I moved in, and two years on, it's still under way, the banging beginning right after breakfast. At a cafe or restaurant it's the ambient noise of TVs, music systems and voluble youngsters that makes conversation or thinking impossible. Anti-noise activists should consider mapping Mumbai's noises more often.

In fact, let's put it in perspective right now.

Several studies have shown that noise pollution levels on Mumbai roads are 80-90 decibels (dB) during peak hours -- nearly the equivalent of standing just 15 feet from a passing freight train. Ambient noise in the city is nearly twice the World Health Organizations maximum safety threshold. The noise from autorickshaws reaches close to 100dB, that's nearly equivalent to the volume of a chainsaw (110dB).

Now consider this: The World Health Organization (WHO) says prolonged or excessive exposure to noise, whether in the community or at work, can cause permanent medical conditions such as hypertension and ischaemic heart disease. Exposure to noise above 80 decibels can also lead to aggressive behavior. That  probably explains why after a 20-minute walk to the grocery store and back, I am ready to take a bazooka and blow up everything in my vicinity.

Beating the decibel down

Thankfully, a cross-section of Mumbaikers have recently been pushing back.

Look at the number of noise-related projects in the city, rating levels for different geographical areas, listed on the Mumbai City Noise Mapping Project. Secondly, the list of Silent Zones keeps growing -- as many as 1,113 areas were declared silent spaces in February 2009. Even Shivaji Park, a favored spot for political rallies and festivals, has been declared a silent zone. Unfortunately the state, surely after pressure from alarmed political parties, is planning to revise the silencing of Shivaji Park.

Another sure sign that the people of Mumbai are taking this cause seriously is the increasing number of days being dedicated to fighting it. On April 7, 2008, Mumbai Traffic Police organized the first No Honking Day in the city with Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador (not surprising, the actor's bungalow in Juhu lies on a traffic thoroughfare). Hopeful, and nearly deaf, traffic cops distributed thousands of stickers to raise awareness. Over 800 policemen were deployed along with 2,000 volunteers to enforce the ban. In February this year, Mumbai had its first Car-Free Day when Carter Road was sealed off to all motor vehicles from morning till night. Mumbai's fight for some peace and quiet has even raised silent eyebrows in the United Kingdom, when this piece ran in The Times.

A lot of the credit for making a noise about noise goes to activists like Sumaira Abdulali and her Awaaz Foundation; Sudhir Badami and veteran activist YT Oke who founded the Anti-Noise Pollution Committee in 1985. Even 25 years back, Oke was writing articles about the effects of noise pollution in the media. It was the tireless fight by Oke and other activists that led to the Noise Pollution Rules and Regulations of 2000.

Noise pollution, a human rights issue?

The growing racket against noise is not surprising since its pollution, like any other environmental issue, is increasingly being viewed as a human rights issue. In October 2009, the International Euronoise Conference was held in Edinburgh, with 800 delegates discussing noise pollution as an environmental concern. Here's why: 

Noise-induced hearing damage is related to duration and volume of exposure -- safe exposure being not more than 85dB for about eight hours. At 100 dB or more, damage can take place in 15 minutes. The level from which humans can begin to identify sounds is 10 to 15dB. At the other end is the threshold of pain -- 140 dB. Prolonged exposure to this level can cause pain, nausea and loss of muscle control. Noise as a form of torture has been used by governments against perceived enemies, detainees and prisoners for a long time. The Nazis employed it. In 2003, the BBC reported that the U.S. Army had used Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and Barney the Purple Dinosaur's "I Love You" to torture Iraqi detainees, playing the songs at high volume over and over.

Now compare that statistic to the ear-blasting 145dB we are exposed to during festivals like Ganpati, where the level is equivalent to being close to a jet engine on take-off. Or the 127dB football players were exposed to from the thousands of vuvuzelas at the World Cup this year. No wonder that players have asked for a ban on the instrument with the drone-attack sound. Argentinean football player Lionel Messi complained about the vuvuzelas after Argentina's 1-0 victory over Nigeria. It is impossible to communicate, he said, it's like being deaf.

Maybe Messi should try visiting Mumbai sometime to get used to that feeling of being stuck inside a vuvuzela zone, night and day, and that's your life.

Silent zones of zero tolerance

Unfortunately, at this point, the only solution is zero tolerance. Whatever the event -- whether it's a festival, a neighborhood party or construction near his building, if the noise generated is breaking rules, call the police station and file a complaint. The Environment Protection Act makes noise pollution a non-bailable offense and stipulates a jail term of five years and a hefty fine of Rs 100,000.

Recently, I had to look up the rules on noise when, late in the night, my windows started shaking due to the noise from a party next door. Under the EP Act 1986 and the Rules on Noise 1989 and Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000, noise is classified as a pollutant. And just so you know, the maximum decibel levels permitted are as follows: Industrial areas 70dB (10 p.m.-6 a.m.) to 75dB (6 a.m.-10 p.m.); similarly, commercial areas must stay between 55dB and 65dB. In residential zones it's 45dB to 55dB. (For more information on noise rules in Mumbai city visit here.)

Now we just need to get the message to the 22 lakh private vehicles in Mumbai, the 8,000 buses, 55,000 taxis and the swarm of autorickshaws -- god bless them.