Invoke God sans the loudspeaker, like the ancients did

The eardrum is a small, thin piece of skin which vibrates when sound waves enter the ear and strike against it. Then a tiny, delicate bone called stirrup sends the vibrations into a snail-shaped part filled with fluid. The vibrations ripple through the fluid and shake microscopic hairs sticking out of the nerve cells located there. When the hairs shake, the cells produce nerve signals which travel to the brain which interprets the sound. This amazing set up copes with myriad sound waves in daily urban life — honking automobiles, drill machines, generator sets, alarm clocks, shrieking fights and bad singing. These sounds cross 80 decibels and constant exposure is harmful to the ear. At the other end are rustling leaves or a whisper whose decibel level is 20. A normal human conversation is about 60 decibels. As per the law, the Noise Pollution Rules, 2000 have fixed the ambient air quality standards in a residential neighbourhood at a maximum of 45 decibels at night and 55 in the daytime.

I live in the peri-urban region of Greater Noida, in the suburbs of Delhi where apartment complexes lie cheek by jowl with villages. Many farmers who have become rich overnight through sale of farmland, celebrate birthdays and weddings by hosting grand soirees. About two months ago, a local VIP decided to celebrate his son’s seventh birthday with an all-night jaagran. In commendable community spirit, the entire neighbourhood was invited to the puja and dinner. A stage was set up with life-size idols of deities. A DJ was playing bhajans set to filmy tunes, in stereophonic sound. It was interspersed with a compere on a microphone urging the audience to shout Jai Mata Di. In between, a cake was cut at the devi’s feet and happy birthday songs were sung.

It was exam time. A lot of students were getting disturbed by the noise and some of the parents protested. Eventually, the jaagran — all night singing — did not happen and the party was wound up at 11pm.

This incident happened in the same month as the flip-flop that the courts did about noise levels during Ganpati festivities in Mumbai. The Bombay High Court supported the activists who wanted the state government to classify certain zones as “silent zones”,  but the Supreme Court declared that loudspeakers could be used anywhere during Ganpati visarjan.

The bone of contention in all such cases is not anything else around the event, but the single detail of the amount of noise it generates disturbing others who are not part of that celebration. And that noise is created by one instrument — the loudspeaker. Sans the loudspeaker, noise would not reach objectionable levels.

It’s not as if loudspeakers have always been part of religious traditions. Alexander Graham Bell patented the first electric loudspeaker in 1876. Soon after, in 1877, Ernst Siemens (of the engineering company which bears his name) created an improved version. Loudspeakers began to be used in India only in the early 20th century. So when Lokmanya Tilak held the first community celebration of Ganpati in 1893, he could not have used a loudspeaker to make a statement to the British.

In the 7th century in Medina, as the number of Muslims grew, it became difficult to alert everyone about the time for prayer. Rejecting suggestions for the use of a bugle or bell like the Christians and Jews of the time did, the Muslims agreed on the practice of a man calling out to the faithful to assemble at the mosque and thus began the practice of azaan (morning call by the muezzin). It wasn’t laid down that about two centuries later when loudspeakers get invented, they should be used. A jaagran is an all-night vigil derived from the Sanskrit word “jaagar” meaning being awake or alert. The principle behind it is that the devotee sacrifices sleep, symbolically offering it to God, just like sacrificing food during a fast. During the night, the mother goddess is invoked by singing devotional songs. It is an old tradition that began and persisted well before technology brought us ways of amplifying our devotion.

What constitutes “noise” is entirely relative. Just as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, noise lies in the hearing sensibility of the listener. Knowledge about the source of a noise has been shown to influence people’s judgement of noise annoyance. People can become finely attuned to the sounds that most disturb them, magnifying its annoyance. One planner in the UK found that in a conservative white dominant small town, residents considered the sound of church bells to be pleasant ambient sound. But the sound of the Imam’s call to prayer from a mosque was seen as disturbing because it was unfamiliar.

One possible way in which to normalise the source of religion-oriented sounds is to go back to the way it was originally done. Sing, chant, summon the faithful, recite mantras like the ancients did. But without the use of the loudspeaker, making only enough sound as the human voice naturally can. That way you respect the fragile, remarkable hearing system that the God we invoke through these practices, designed for us.

Vasudevan is the author of the book Urban Villager: Life in an Indian satellite town