Karachi is a noisy city because Karachiites love noise. Ask the mullah who calls for moral rectitude and piety from the mosque's 16 loudspeakers; ask the young people who drive with the car's music system blaring at full volume; ask the politicians who are mega noise makers outside the Karachi Press Club every afternoon.
So what does the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) expect to achieve from its proposed study to measure noise levels in various parts of the city? SEPA undertook a. similar study in 1994 but failed to convince the public that noise is harmful to health. In the past 14 years there has been not an iota of change in our attitude to noise. No doubt many of us would like to turn a deaf ear to certain kinds of noise we are forced to hear, but the long exposure to such clamour has not impaired hearing as SEPA had predicted in 1994.
The current study is likely to be an exercise in futility just like the previous one was. To support SEPA, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Karachi organised a seminar on the issue of noise pollution in 2005.
The speakers included medical experts, an ENT specialist, an environmentalist, researcher, the SSP Traffic and representatives of transporters. If everyone at the seminar, including the transporters, agreed with Pakistan Medical Association that there is, verily, too much noise in Karachi and something ought to be done to scare the public to give up this bad habit, they were being polite. It did not mean they actually believed noise was bad. Seminar speakers never disagree with the topic of the seminar.
If they disagreed they would never be invited in future to speak at any seminar, and thus deny themselves an excellent source of free meals, tea and samosas. One must therefore be sceptical about what experts tell us. Most of it is bogus. I am not saying this merely for effect, I have been reviewing SEPA' s old study and the Pakistan Medical Association's seminar report. What the experts said may be technically correct but in real terms it is false.
A medical expert had said at the Pakistan Medical Association seminar that 85 decibels was the maximum level of sound bearable by the human ear and long exposure to noise levels above 85 decibels would permanently damage hearing. Constant exposure over ten years to the noise would turn a human being stone deaf. If this was true the whole of Karachi should be deaf by now.
The expert especially mentioned autorickshaw drivers who, exposed to the noise of their vehicles would become deaf in 10 years. Considering he had before him the 1994 report of SEPA which had mentioned rickshaws as the noisiest vehicles on Karachi roads, the expert ought to have noted that none of the rickshawalas is deaf or becoming deaf.
As in its past report, SEPA's findings in the current study will not be different. It will once again round up the usual suspects, the rickshaws, as the main culprits causing noise pollution, followed by motorcycles, minibuses, omni buses and cars. It will never dare to openly state that the loudspeakers used at mosques and at political rallies are causing noise pollution, and were culprits at par with noisy vehicles. In the 1994 study SEPA gauged that the noise level at most of the sites in the study area was 120 decibels, which is the noise level of jet engine planes. More or less the same sites have been chosen for the current study. So what does the SEPA expect to find that would be different? You do not really need a study to tell you the level of noise on Karachi's main thoroughfares, you could tell it by ear.
What we really need is a study to find out why we have not all gone deaf. It is odd, is it not, that Karachiites can hear everything loud and clear even the whispers in the corridors of power? Is this a special talent of Karachiites, are we a unique type of homo sapiens? The hearing of young people ought to be impaired as they not only make a lot of noise with the music in their Cars but listen to loud music (in every sense of loud) in their bedrooms. My nephew loves what is called heavy metal rock. This music, said my nephew, is supposed to be heard at full volume with the doors and windows of the room closed.
He said the real thrill of is not just in listening but to feel the vibrations on the skin and in the bones. There are speakers fixed to the four corners of the room to create surround sound, which cause the vibrations. He and his like-minded friends have not become deaf.
Of course, I was completely zonked once when my nephew invited me to his room to hear and experience the "wow" of heavy metal rock. After the concert I was expected to express enthusiasm.
I do not know why young people like this Racket they call music, but I was not about to criticise it and hurt their feelings. I said the only thing I could honestly say: "Ummh!" I said, which my nephew interpreted to mean "Wow!" In my inexpert opinion, the ear is as adaptable as any other human faculty. My house in Gulshan-i-Iqbal was near the railway line and when I first moved in I used to be awoken from deep sleep by the terrifying clarion call of the train's hooter.
But later I got used to the sound and would sleep peacefully through the noise. In the daytime, too, I hardly noticed that the train had gone by, though it continued to sound the hooter every time it passed my house.
Later, when I moved to Defence to an apartment near a mosque I got used to the loudspeakers. I told my mohallawala Haji Sikander who is on the mosque committee that the noise of the loudspeakers no longer disturbed me and perhaps even if Hazrat Israel blows his trumpet announcing the start of Qayamat, I am likely to sleep through, undisturbed.
All attempts to get rid of what SEPA dubs noise pollution have been unsuccessful. All the well-intentioned campaigns have been a failure. At the Pakistan Medical Association seminar of 2005, Syed Irshad Bukhari, leader of bus owners association admitted (with inward glee, I am sure) that a campaign launched by city police against noisy rickshaws was shelved as the rickshawalas resorted to protest and picketing. Nevertheless, he assured the Pakistan Medical Association that transporters favoured any campaign for making the city pollution free.
He probably said that because it was expected of him and also because he did not want to lose out on future free lunches, tea and samosas. You do not need me to tell you that buswalas are avid noise makers and likely to remain so.
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