Call me a sissy and I would stick you in a 3'X3' room with lots of them, but pray tell me why does Diwali have to have noisy firecrackers (in India, we just call them crackers, which happens to be an edible commodity in the West)? Bangalore is even more silly in having 3 days of Diwali!! People were undecided about whether Naraka Chathurdasi or Amavasya or (what was previously unheard of) Prathama should be considered as Diwali. So why waste the little grey nut upstairs: let's make noise on all days.
I don't know what the obsession with noise is, but as is generally observed, ruckus is considered the (in)sensitive index of human revelry. Be at work or at just about any place. Go to a coffee pub to have cuppa and you simply have to listen to the noise that some stupid bloke chose for the day. At work, screeching Marthas (or Mariammas) define the level of fun a particular group is having. A cool guy at work decided to play music at a loud volume. I remember a time when I was made the DJ for my team and I think I enjoyed guessing the mood of the team and playing songs from my PC while others worked or grumbled under their breath. Now I realise that some guy who wasn't cool enough to blog about it must have also wanted to wring my neck.
Amongst children it is an unwritten code that the louder something gets the more excitement it provides. Kinda makes me wonder whether we (human beings) are wired to be like that and prefer noise to tranquility. I see monkeys jump, chatter and "chee-chee" to exhibit their excitement and hence, I think we haven't changed much, but we can, right? I really wish Diwali was lesser noise and more colours and light. I saw very few houses with diyas but lots of "bombs" go off and scare the daylights (daylight-nightlight-fanny-by-the-gaslight) out of humans and animals alike. We should probably sell CDs with firecracker recordings, but I am sure every tea-shop will be playing them on their boom-boxes.
Wouldn't it be fun if someone could invent a noise-canceller?
The Human Species is fast rushing towards its own destruction and along with this, the complete annihilation of the Earth and its beauty and wealth and richness of other lovelier animals and beautiful species.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing more to say beyond this.
We live because of the Earth's generosity and die because of our selfish ruthlessness towards our beloved Home, our great Earth. Noise is just one of the various hells that we have deliberately bestowed on Earth.
Anger, lamenting, activism or blogposts are so ineffective, that only pity for these worthy attempts fills me...
Felt strange reading your post.. well I was complaining about the nosiness of Diwali when in India.. But calling home around this time.. my ears strain to pick up the noises.. and my eyes close to imagine the festivities.. Here the silence is sometimes deafening!!
ReplyDeleteAnd very lonely!!
I hear ya :)
ReplyDeleteAnd btw, its called noisecancelling headphones by bose, sony, .. :)
Hi erotome,
ReplyDeleteI'm new to your blog. I liked what I read in it. your style of writing is wonderful which conveys whatever you want to say really well.
Being an Indian, I too have the same problem. Each year I too used to burst crackers but this time I opted out of it as my sense came back to me and I noticed about the noise pollution!
Hope you had a happy ans safe Diwali!
keep writing as I'll be back soon to read more of your posts! :D
Too good. Very funny, i was actually rolling.
ReplyDeleteDiwali has become noisier by the day and the best part it I only find people complaining about it, if so many are complaining then who is making the noise? I guess that is the noise
saw your pictures on Flickr, cou;dn't comment there but they are nice. I think words effect more than piictures for me and I loved the captions:
ReplyDelete"Those who didn't make it to ....
"Isn't the path of light and shadow the same...
Dear P,
ReplyDelete*nodding* :-)
Dear M,
I am sure I would miss them too if I stayed away for long, but just the fireworks part which produces the least sound (hissing and whooshing are fine with me). I tend to prefer silence over indiscriminate noice and aloneness over company that produces it over and over again. Hence, I am called boring!!! :-D
Dear T,
Those seem to function only when I am listening to something and not when I simply don them. What I am talking about are those air curtain like contraptions (minus the noise) which cancel noise by sending out audio waves in the inverted sinusoidal pattern in order to cause interference which effectively cancels out the noise. Or noise-black-holes which absorb sound waves and do not allow them to reach me (but that would be tough as sound uses a medium to travel)
Dear M,
Welcome to this blog. Probably I should change my name to erotome. So many people have called me that by now that eroteme seems alien to me!! :-D
Dear Y,
Welcome to this blog. For every person who speaks out against noise, there are 100 people who go about bursting them (India is quite a populous place, milady/sir). Glad you liked the photographs. Its been a while since I went out with my camera. Need to do that asap. Will help me test Blogger's new slideshow feature too!! :-)