Deepika Sorabjee: Mumbai's dim-witted noise laws need to be more music friendly

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival will be held this year, as usual in February, but with one major difference: no loudspeakers during evening performances.

Last year the organizers ran into trouble with a law that prohibits the use of loudspeakers in ‘Silence Zones’ or beyond 10 p.m. in any area 100 meters from an educational or religious institution, court of law or hospital. This law was enforced by the police and concerts were disrupted.

The fact that nobody is actually inside the concerned nearby church or synagogue at that hour seems not to concern the authorities. They are more bothered by thousands of people in the open having a good time peacefully. 

This is the same reason that concerts at the legendary Rang Bhavan have ceased.

In the vicinity of St Xavier’s college and the Cama hospital, this open-air theater in South Mumbai has memories of jazz greats like Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins and Stephane Grappelli performing at the Jazz Yatras of the 1980s. 

Because of Rang Bhavan the cult Independence Rock music festival thrived as a rite of passage for Mumbai rockers and rock bands till it was marked as a Silence Zone in 2003.

Concerts at Malhar, the in-house festival at St Xavier’s College, went on late into the night. Those were heady days of sound and smoke and long nocturnal hours.

That same generation may have grown into more classical (and less loud) music by attending the annual Banganga and Elephanta dance and music festivals, but two years ago those came under the cropper too. The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, organizers of these two events, seems to have lost interest and noise pollution laws have become ever more unsparing.

As a result, today neither my kids nor I have anywhere to move freely to our preferred live music, in the open, in Mumbai, post 10 p.m.

What are we missing?

At Banganga the concerts were held on a stage floated in the Banganga Tank, a sacred tank in the complex of Walkeshwar Temple. One took cushions and sat around the steps and took it all in. It was atmospheric to say the least, an ancient legend, and ancient tank smack in the center of temples and high rises at the southern tip of Malabar Hill. 

Hardly raucous or deafening and just for a couple of days.

Compare that to the pounding, crackling Bollywood latest hits that batter our senses every Ganesh festival and millions of people marauding the city for a fortnight every year.

Where are the law enforcers then?

So here we have a new generation of Mumbaikars lost to the pleasures of outdoor concerts. Mills converted into music venues like Blue Frog and Hard Rock Café are the new meccas for the new sounds and the National Centre for Performing Arts is still the solitary de facto venue for classical music and dance performance.

Why can’t we have all three? Is the Indian government biased against certain live performance cultures such as jazz, rock and electronic dance music? If we can allow leeway for one festival in the name of religion why can’t we give allowance to a parallel culture far less destructive to our ears?

At Elephanta, the ritual of setting out on a ferry as the sun set, arriving at the island outside of regular hours, a lovely late evening visit to the caves, then lying on gaddhas and hearing maestros and watching dance virtuosos till late into the night was an experience hard to beat in Mumbai’s cultural calendar. 

There we guarded picnic dinners against monkeys and ferries ran back and forth till the early hours of the morning.

The concerts were held way below the caves; there was no damage, so why is everything worthwhile in our city grinding to a halt even as the wattage on trucks and dancing in the streets during the Ganesh festival increases, rivaled only by staged Navratri performances? 

The use of micro speakers may work at public functions to relay background music, but this is hardly acceptable for concerts.

In the months of December, January and February the weather in Mumbai is idyllic for outdoor concerts. But due to a noise pollution law so destructive in its blanket simplicity, we are being denied a pleasure that should be considered a right to citizens in cities across the world.

Currently the outdoor venues in use are the amphitheater at Bandra Bandstand and the Andheri stadium used for large rock concerts. Even the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation had to wind up world renowned maestros like Placido Domingo and Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Cricket Club of India grounds by 10 p.m., even as the traffic at Churchgate at that hour exceeds permissible noise levels.

Speaking of which, ambient noise levels in Mumbai are horrendous. Nearly twice that of the 40 db (A) level laid down as acceptable by the World Health Organisation.

The creation of silence zones is a welcome contribution by ardent activists such as Sumaira Abdulali and the Awaaz Foundation, where the use of loudspeakers is banned even during the day.

The Noise Pollution (Control and Regulation) Rules 2000 were drawn up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests who were clearly concerned about Mumbai’s ambient noise and duration of citizen’s exposure to it.

There’s good sounds and bad noise. Surely the law can be applied more pragmatically? 

In Kala Ghoda no church congregation is being disturbed post 10 p.m. If I were to take a poll among the students at St Xavier’s on whether an all-night concert once a year would disturb them, I can safely guess the answer is no.

For two days in the year I doubt Banganga residents will not mind sounds of a santoor floating up from the tank or tabla maestro Zakir Hussain bringing the house down.

Even the monkeys at Elephanta I reckon, welcome the extra opportunity to snatch a sandwich even as the ancient stones are unaffected by classical music  performances.

A recent MiD DAY article shows that when officials from various government departments were contacted on the question of why live cultural events in the city were fading out, they either deny it, pass the buck to a higher authority or blame terrorism, parking and security issues.

Cultural activities in areas that will not cause damage to people or property should be allowed after a sound hearing of individual cases.

Otherwise we’ll have to listen to concerts in Central Park on our iPods and hope for more enlightened interpreters of what constitutes noise and what is music to the ears.

Traveling Mumbai city and the world CNNGo contributor Deepika Sorabjee packs in art, cinema and contemporary non-fiction and writes about tastes, people and places that fill the spaces between.