It was a pleasant day in the scorching summers of June, drizzling. So, early in the morning, I decided to skip my gym and go for a drive….. to be Alive, peaceful and enjoy the silence of the morning hours. Just a few minutes run made me realize that I was mistaken. The drive was anything but peaceful. All that I could hear was cacophony of sounds - horns blaring, prayers broadcast on loudspeakers and local vegetable sellers weaving their way through residential colonies shouting out their offerings of the day.
That is how a morning normally starts in a metro city like Delhi. Yes, I mean the noise from the road traffic. And for some who reside on the main road, this sound never ends, not even at night. Studies reveal that it also affects concentration, particularly for people who are living near heavy traffic intersections, and blood pressure levels in heart patients.
Delhi Traffic is appalling, not only because of the escalating number of automobiles in the city but also because we have made it earsplitting. The voluble mad rush at peak hours and the extreme weather both have made travelling very taxing. The bass of a bus mixes with the thin shrieks of a motor scooter. Add in the noise of rasping truck brakes, the sweet tinkle of bicycles and rickshaws, the wailing Bollywood music pumped out by kids in their new cars, the siren of an ambulance vainly trying to push its way through the heaving mass.
When I started to learn driving, one of the first few lessons I learnt was that one should use the horn only when needed and no horns at night. I don’t know if we are not aware of this or we simply choose not to pay attention to it.
Once in jam, I was unfortunately stuck in front of a BMW. Gosh! Agreed he had a superfluous car and the money to own it but did that give him a right to own the Delhi roads? I noticed that the he had conveniently found a spot on his steering wheel where his right thumb rested and pressed the horn incessantly as he weaved through traffic.
Horn as I thought was to be used by the driver to give a warning; Mind it, it must be used for a WARNING. The reality however is :It seems almost compulsory to use your horn constantly. We keep pressing that pomp pomp very conveniently and as many times as we like because there is no one to stop us.
Environment ministry is soon rolling out an Ambient Noise Monitoring Network to monitor sound in seven metros in India. We’ll soon have a fine by the Traffic police to get us into the discipline. My suggestion is that we do it by ourselves. We are civilized grown up people who don’t need teachers all the time on our head, like school children. Even if we resolve to use the horn just 5 times less each day; Wow! That change would be a welcome change. I am already thankful in advance for those agree to follow this.
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