In the early hours of the morning, (and I really mean ungodly hours), the peace and calm of the locality is only interrupted by the occassional chirping of early birds out to get worms. Or so we’ve heard.
To the residents of the locality of Byrasandra (the place is as unglamourous as it sounds, trust me), this would be a novel concept. One that they would in all probability not even be aware of. In this BBMP-forsaken area, the early hours of the morning are filled with resounding honking, loud enough even to wake the dead. I’m half surprised there aren’t zombies taking a cheerful walk, you know, to get some fresh air.
Funny as I would like to make it sound, it actually is a very serious problem. The bigger surprise is that no one seems to want to do anything about it, and it makes me deeply ashamed of the community as a whole; because as someone great once said, Evil only needs Good to do nothing.
Although calling this a Good Vs. Evil problem would be profoundly exaggerated, it does apply. Considering that the entire area is filled with so called “White collar” IT people, who are expected to stand up against such things, they liberally apply selective deafness and a “chaltha hai” attitude to this noise problem.
They also give me incrediby funny looks when I call them idiots and tell them to stop honking, because inside that glass dome of their vehicles, nothing matters. And so I see people dressed to the nines, in expensive cars, acting like little children who want to simply bully pedestrians into submission, so that they can make their 9 am meeting.
I doubt any of them consider leaving earlier to beat the traffic.
I came to live here a little over two years ago, considering my [then] new husband lived there. Imagine the shock a person goes through when they move from a quiet respectable area like Malleshwaram, to the uncouth, cacophonus, forgotten location of Byrasandra.
It was extremely, ear-drum shatteringly shocking, and I have rarely had a good night’s sleep since. The only solution offered to me when I try to raise my voice against this issue, is to close the windows at night (tried, not helpful), and stick earplugs when I walk out on the street.
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This is the same problem everywhere in Bengaluru. People should change the way they drive. Here are some experiences.
In residential areas the BBMP garbage collector auto’s uses horn heavily to wake up the people to dump the garbage in their autos. There are many idiots who feels the traffic signal turns green by honking horn. There are educated illiterates who feels honking horn gives them side when there is a traffic jam. Trucks and private buses are the upper limit setters for the noise pollution. In 10KMPH Speed what is the need of using the long distance horn on city roads. No traffic cop cares for catching them. When you dare to give the feedback the cab drivers starts confrontation.
The stretch of St Johns Church Road is a silence Zone because of Lakeside Hospital. The traffic police department has installed an alarm for Pedestrians which goes non stop every 7 minutes at a very high pitch making the life of people living close to the signal miserable. This type of alarms are to be intalled in places like anil Kumble Circle or Chholai Circle where more pedestrians use the crossings. This particular junction hardly sees any pedestrians. The matter was taken up with the ACP traffic earlier and it was disconnected. But, some over zealous policeman has reintroduced the alarm again. The traffic police department has no moral right to talk about Honking when they can not reduce the sound pollution created by their devices. I am a Senior Citizen and there three families with Super Senior Citizens living in our flats. we are all already half deaf thanks to the sound pollution in Bangalore . Even we are unable to withstand this torture from morning 7 AM to 11 PM. I request a service minded lawyer to file a PIL against these unwanted devices causing mental disturbance to elders.