This post was long in the making – the seeds of it sown during the recent Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, and now culminating in the Durga Pooja celebrations. This note is for the organizers of such festivals. Having been on both sides of the fence, I expect this post to be a balanced view.
Indians love noise.
Let me begin by Indianizing the context – we love noise during festivals. Bustling preparations that set the whole household abuzz a week before the festival contribute majorly to the excitement – and they’re all needed to take one away from the drone of daily routine. All this has been happening for thousands of years – and frankly, not just in India – festivities involve huge preparations all over the world – and are always accompanied by noise/music/gatherings/storytelling/rituals, etc.
Festivals are ages old. So is noise. Why this hue and cry about Noise Pollution now?
So why this brouhaha about noise pollution now? What’s changed is that loudspeakers now transmit sounds over long distances, and communities are more widely spread out than they used to be. This means there’re always a mixture of people living around you – some who don’t share that festival with you, and some who do.
What can one or two days of noise do to you anyway?
We’re talking noise 24/7 on those days. Eight hours of exposure to 85 dB of noise can be the beginnings of permanent ear damage. And noise at a loud dandiya hall, or near some cultural programme can exceed 100 dB on an average. In general everyone faces irritation and annoyance, students face anxiety due to their inability to concentrate, and some exam or the other is always looming near, the older folks face raised blood pressure, the infants are repeatedly startled out of deep sleep, and disturbed sleep makes everyone cranky – infants and adults alike.
The Legal Angle
A little bit of consideration can save you from legal action. These days people don’t take things lying down, and there are android apps available for every passer by to measure the noise levels leaving your venue. Along with GPS mapping to pinpoint location, it’s easy to gather proof and lodge a police complaint.
Any solutions here?
I’ve mentioned enough about what noise pollution can do to your health, so here let me only speak of the solutions we can think of. There are strict mandates by the courts of law about acceptable noise levels in urban areas being less than 55 dB uptil 10 p.m., and less than 45 dB after 10 p.m. Organizers of the events are bound by law to adhere to these norms. Here are some things they should do – these will ensure
- that you enjoy your festival while not causing physiological distress to others who don’t share your festive mood
- that you don’t get on the wrong side of the law.
To start with,
- Ensure that noise levels at the boundary of your event is less than 55 dB. This is easily possible these days, and it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Talk to an acoustical consultant. Solutions can be easier and cheaper than you think, and they may cost you less than a twentieth of the average budget for such events.
- Tilt your speakers. Rock shows use line array speakers which are tilted at an angle – this ensures that the main beam of sound coming out of a speaker does not run parallel to the ground, but will surely hit the ground at some point, minimizing the direct energy leaving the area. The reflected sound leaving the venue is easier to contain with barriers. Your sound engineer or acoustical consultant can help you with this.
- Cut out celebrations at 10 p.m . Everyone needs their shut eye after a tiring day. Ask tired moms whose infants wake up 4 times an hour thanks to your mood. The solution is simply to celebrate during the day. If you can’t do that, please spend more from your budget on soundproofing. It’s not as expensive as you think, and a lot of features of the venue can be used to mitigate sound after a certain boundary.
- Avoid mounting horn loudspeakers on streetlamp poles for half a mile on each side. In other words, there’s no need to tell the whole town about your celebrations. Use posters/hoardings to publicize, if you have to. Keep all your loudspeakers within your venue.
- Use ear plugs yourself. Quite honestly, your ears aren’t made of sterner stuff compared to those who get disturbed by noise at a distance. Before you find out the wrong way, please do things to protect your hearing. You will be able to dance quite well to the music despite ear plugs in your ear – they only reduce the direct sound hitting your ear. Try it.
So is it really possible to contain noise in such venues?
The simple answer is yes. Distance does a great deal to help attenuate, so if the venue is large, it is more easily possible to contain sound at the edges. I was once posed with a client’s requirement – they wanted me to think of some kind of enclosure that tests audio setups for live sound. So this enclosure is to have about 50 dB of sound on the outside, while the inside sound levels would be about 120 dB. The catch is, because this enclosure tests live sounds, it has to be completely modular – one should be able to dismantle, transport, and assemble it. Now THAT’s a difficult project. Only heavy mass can block sound over short distances.
So, controlling noise levels from leaving a fixed area meant for large gatherings is decently possible.
