The glorious visual panorama of India is familiar to us all: the towering mount­ains, mighty rivers, and stunning temples and monuments are depicted everywhere along with colourful street scenes and the sadhu with his trident. But there’s a panorama of beautiful sounds all around us too; the sound of the waters lapping and raging, the first calls of birds in the morning, romantic songs and sacred chanting, the cries of children playing, and, in the distance, the sweet sound of shehnai or flute as the sun rises or sets.

Today, in many places, all this is being blocked out by inhumanly loud music, broadcast through equipment that is not meant for music, and by firework explosions that go on from the time of the predawn rays to the deepest reaches of the night. As levels of noise pollution rise, people lose more and more of their hearing. As people grow deafer, noise gets louder and louder.

This vicious circle is still in operation in many areas and the odd thing is that people are ­doing this to themselves, as well as to each other. Aside from reducing their own ability to hear, they are permanently damaging the ears of their own babies and small children by letting off non-stop bursts of firecrackers, or by playing music for hours on end at top volume through loudspeakers that distort it.

Sleep deprivation and reduced ability to concentrate; rise in blood pressure and nervous conditions; ulcers and even miscarriages; and of course deafness – these are some of the effects of too much loud noise. Imitation wars that go on day after day with crackers and country bombs exploding any odd time, leave behind an atmosphere more polluted than ever, a mess in the streets, and, often, some injured children as well. Old people, sick people and people doing anything that demands concentration are suffering. It’s especially hard on students and schoolchildren who are under pressure to excel. The exhilaration produced by bursts of very loud noise can be enjoyable but the thrill is short-lived, especially when compared with the loss of hearing that can burden us all our lives.

This entirely unnecessary noise is an attack upon our very consciousness, preventing us from thinking and, equally, from letting thought fall away and be replaced by inner ­silence.

What can be going on, we wonder, since laws passed in 1967 expressly forbid all this shrieking, howling and thund­erous crashing when citizens are going about their business or trying to get some rest.

The laws ban any recorded music that can be heard more than 30 metres from its source, as well as the use of horn-shaped loudspeakers which have no middle register and are meant for public address. Even in this properly controlled form, there may be no noise before 5  a.m. or after 10 p.m. or within earshot of any school, medical facility or place of worship.

If you are reading this in a quiet place in the country or in a city where only the regular sort of noise is present, it will be difficult for you to believe that this brain-bashing, ear-drum-cracking menace is real. Even those of us in areas where we can’t hear ourselves speak, let alone think, can’t believe, whenever it stops, that it could actually have happened and will soon begin again. Suddenly a programme you’re watching or music you’re listening to comes through clearly, not mixed up with the screeching from loudspeakers with no middle register, and not punctuated by ear-splitting bangs that sound like bombs exploding. In a world of normal sound levels, it seems highly unlikely that any society would tolerate constant, unnecessary, and illegal damage to its health and peace of mind.

When the laws are enforced, the festivals and events are celebrated with lights and flowers, and with music too, of course. Music is then played at a human level, inside the building, for the people who have come to ­celebrate. Very often the music is live or, relayed through the appropriate equipment at reas­onable levels, sounds as it is ­supposed to sound.

It’s a shame and a pity to mutilate beautiful, or even ­sacred, songs, by playing them on crude equipment at such a volume that they go bouncing off concrete walls and in and out of television and radio program­­mes near and far. The volume on all the TVs and radios in the area is turned up to compensate, adding to the ­cacophony.

If we don’t want to see something, we can, under normal circumstances, close our eyes; we can hold our noses against bad smells; but against loudspeakers at decibels way over acceptable levels, or against monotonous or shocking explosions, there is not much we can do to protect ourselves: ear plugs, closed windows and alternative sounds are not enough to keep this pollution out.

Naturally, no one wants to offend anyone nor give anyone the slightest possible reason to take umbrage, or to feel that his/her particular group has been singled out. This is one of the reasons why consistent efforts to put an end to this misery have not met with lasting success. It’s important to point out before considering any action, that no group has the right to disturb its neighbours in such a way, and that the people setting up these speakers and buying armfuls of explosive fireworks are not being identified with any community or religion but with noise pollution.

Now that most of us can tune into the sounds of our choice through TV, radio, stereo, or even by playing musical instruments, the time has surely come to shed this burden of excess noise. The police are duty-bound to prevent any infringement of the law, but they are not going to unless people complain. It will take a concerted effort in a given area to get the needed action, with a number of people calling in each time the law is broken and citizens are disturbed.

The good news is that in some places in India the problem has been faced and solved. Eventually this will happen everywhere, for with the increasing density of population it will no longer be possible for any group or individual to interfere with the quality of life and productivity of everyone else. (Courtesy: Sri Aurobindo’s Action)

They grinned, shouted out sentences – they sang… (or at least tried to….) No, this was not a riotous meeting of those chunks of humanity who tend to ultimately lead on to pink chaddi campaigns.

Indu Balachandran

No, this was at no less an ­august venue than the Madras Book Club, meeting at the Con­nemara Hotel, with Indu Bala­chandran* speaking on ‘Hu­mour in the Work Place – a tongue-in-cheek audio-visual guide to coping with your cubicle life’.

Humour is definitely the preferred weapon of choice to deal with all of life’s goofy little games – and what better place to wield it than the work environment?

Indu, instead of delivering long speeches of the New-Age-Speak kind, chose to make her point through a series of advertisements (and given that she was formerly VP, Executive Creative Head – JWT Chennai, this makes sense).

Indu began by making the audience shout out the following sentences:

I am not sleepy;

I love India;

I owe Indu Rs. 100.

Yeah, she actually got Book Club members to do this – although you suspect that the strong presence of some of her old colleagues and friends from the feisty world of advertising helped ease things along.

(And Indu, those sentences may not be exact quotes – but to borrow a phrase from our mutual hometown – “please to adjust”.)

Indu, who believes, like most others, that ‘one of life’s mean tricks is making you work for a living’, then launched into her presentation.

If any ‘outsider’ (read non-member of the work force) has ever suffered a sense of having missed out on something, or carries an image of ‘chosen few’ mystic about the ‘work environment’ – relax.  It’s made up of as many samples of the daft and the mixed-up as any social group you have ever known.

Like the boss who casually flicks a junior’s ideas to present as his own, or prefers birthday cake being fed to him by a nubile young female colleague rather than an earnest male counterpart – with some unfortunate repercussions.  Or the three goof-off golfers who do not take the simple precaution of ensuring that their ‘correct’ backdrop is firmly fixed in place before teleconferencing with their boss.

Something so obvious, it scares you that these are the people who play around with global economy.

Well, it figures.

Early meetings are always a pain; and, so you imagine, are straggling employees who invariably fail to make it on time. 

But wait – how about if each of you was guaranteed a…er…. rather fffrrriendly welcome from ….er…sexes of your own particular preference? (Oh, boy, the moral policing hysteria even a sentence like that could kick off!!)

Incidentally, kissing spreads fewer germs than shaking hands.

So it says in an advertisement.

So it must be true.

As Indu said, keeping up with technology matters. Otherwise you tend to confuse a computer with a typewriter with some regrettable damage to office property, which cannot do your career any good.

And that’s bad in today’s scenario, when companies are so busy handing out pink slips. (Indu obligingly brought along a sample of that particular piece of inner-wear to display, in case anyone missed the point.)

Do qualifications always work?  Perhaps not, you feel as you watch a long-suffering senior employee trying to deal with (hold your breath!) an MBA – who has been specialised into mental atrophy, and now needs to be taught the simplest of procedures.

A warning was given to over-achieving men – beware, that trophy wife you have back home running your errands, hosting your parties, and appearing by your side dutifully at all official ‘events’, may be picking up some other interesting stuff along with your laundry. 

Oh, well, if the word “work” has many interpretations, so does the word “benefits” – and that goes for both sexes.

And the best source of information and fact-gathering in any office?

The water cooler.

Indu punctuated her talk with comments, snatches of imitation, and readings from Scott Adams’ The Joy of Work. And any speaker who talks to herself through a series of “Oh, God, what’s happened to this thing?” before an open mike as she pokes desperately at various keys to get her presentation to behave, can only end up making her talk endearing and human.

For the finale, Indu had cleverly re-written James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful, titling her version The Cubicle.

And she wanted the audience to sing along with her.

Which a few bolder ones were prepared to do.

But the gremlins in the gizmos acted up again.

Technology always chooses the most awful moments to let us down.  As you remark to a fellow afficionado, there were touches of near-Wodehousian haplessness at times, and you could almost hear dim echoes of certain conversations:

 Bertie Wooster: Jeeves!

 Jeeves: Sir?

 Bertie: Oh, I say, Jeeves. The thingummy of the what’s-it appears to have collapsed.

 Jeeves: Most disturbing, Sir.

 Bertie:  And here we are, dash it, facing a sea of pop-eyed book-readers, gazing at us, trusting us to provide the magic solution. This is a mess, Jeeves. A disaster.

 Jeeves: Certainly an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances appears to have arisen, Sir.

 Well, Indu didn’t call for Jeeves. She stayed calm, and with commendable aplomb, merely ‘read’ out the song, deciding to follow advice shouted out to her by former colleagues. She laughed at the situation, and at herself, and brought the audience into the laughter.

Not taking yourself too seriously – now that’s real humour.

Way to go, Indu.

Now that we know you are working on your book – Don’t Go Away, We’ll Be Right Back – on the hilarities of the advertising life, here’s hoping for another Book Club meeting soon – this time with you as author.

Indu Balachandran is now a regular contributor of anecdotal travel stories in particular to The Hindu (Sunday) and Travel Plus. She writes a weekly travel blog for idiva.com on the misadventures of travel. Indu currently reviews eco-friendly hotels all over India for a travel website, traveltocare.com.

Social History

Ahuja R (2002) Labour relations in an early colonial context: Madras, 1750–1800. Modern Asian Studies 36: 793–826.

Ahuja has attempted to analyse labour relations in Madras City and its hinterland in the late XVIII Century, in the period between the pre-colonial and colonial times. The discussion highlights the problem of continuity and change – it is intended to identify ancien régime forms of subordinating labour that proved to be compatible with colonial conditions and to distinguish them from forms that did not survive or were newly created.

Ahuja R (2002) State Formation and ‘Famine Policy’ in early colonial South India. Indian Economic and Social History Review 39: 351–380.

In this article Ahuja fills the historiographical gap by presenting new archival evidence concerning dearth and famine in Madras and its hinterland in the latter half of XVIII Century.

Institutional History

Photographic Society of Madras, The (no date) History. www.photomadras.org/history.html. The Photographic Society of Madras was established by Alexander Hunter, who was the driving force behind the Madras School of Industrial Arts in Madras in 1857. This Society elected as its first President Walter Elliot, a member of the Governor’s Council (Elliot’s Beach celebrates him). Elliot inducted Lord Harris, the Governor of the Madras Presidency, and his successor, Sir Charles Trevelyan, as members of the Society. The roster of the Society in the 1850s was a sort of ‘Who’s Who’ of the then Madras European elite, a popular Society that attracted many to join. The Society met regularly in the premises of the School of Industrial Arts.

Medical History

Regional Institute of Ophthalmology & Government Ophthalmic Hospital, Chennai (2006) www.riogoh chennai.ac.in/History_ journey_voyage.htm. Then known as the ‘Madras Eye Infirmary’, the Madras Ophthalmic Hospital, founded by R. Richardson in the summer of 1819, is the oldest eye hospital in India and one among the earliest in the world. Richardson, who studied ophthalmology under Benjamin Travers in the UK, founded the infirmary at Royapettah (behind the first premises of the Madras Club). It was shifted to the site occupied by the tram shed in Egmore (near the present-day Dina­thanthi office) in 1820. A delightful narrative is available upto the present times.

Anonymous (1923) Indigenous systems of medicine in India – Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani. British Medical Journal 2(3272): 477-480.

On February 21, 1921, the Madras Legislative Council passed a resolution urging the Government to take early steps to encourage the indigenous systems of medicine. On February 17, 1923, a committee formed for the purpose presented its report devoted to a description of the indigenous systems. This report refers to demographic statistics of the Madras Presidency, demands of the indigenous practitioners, general principles of Ayurveda, Ayur­vedic conceptions of metabolism, Ayurvedic pathology, Ayurvedic diagnostic methods, Ayurveda in practice, and a conclusion, in reasonable detail.

Hausman G.J. (2002). Making medicine indigenous: Homeopathy in South India. Social History of Medicine 15: 303 322.

Studies of homeopathy in India have focussed on a process of Indianisation. This paper situates homeopathy in South India within the context of shifting relations between ‘scientific’ and ‘indigenous’ systems of medicine. Three time periods have been considered. From 1924 to 1934, homeopathy was singled out by Government of Madras officials as ‘scientific’, as contrasted with the ‘indigenous’ Ayurvedic, Siddha, and Unani systems of medicine. From 1947 through 1960, both ‘indigenous’ and ‘scientific’ interpretations of homeopathy were put forward by different factions. An honorary director of homeopathy proposed the Indianisation of homeopathy, and its reconciliation with Ayurveda; this view conflicted with the Madras Government’s policy of expanding the ‘scientific’ medical curriculum of the Government College of Indigenous Medicine. It was not until the early 1970s that homeopathy was officially recognised in Tamil Nadu State. By then, both homeopathy and Ayurveda had become concept­ual­ised as non-Tamil, in contrast with promotion of the Tamil Siddha system of ‘indigenous’ medicine. Thus, constructs of ‘indigenous’ and ‘scientific’ systems of medicine are quite malleable with respect to homeopathy in South India.

Rangabashyam N. (2007) Gastroenterology in India. Indian Journal of Gastroenterology 26: 28–29.

William Niblock performed the first successful gastrojejunostomy for gastric outlet obstruction due to peptic ulcer at the General Hospital, Madras, on March 2, 1905. Niblock is also remembered for the widely quoted article on Epidemology of cancer in India in 1902. Pandalai is credited with carrying out the first successful partial gastrectomy in Madras General Hospital in 1926. In the late 1950s, Ratnavelu Subramanian reported that cirrhosis of the liver in Madras differs from what occurs in the people of the West with regard to their etiology, mode of presentation, management and prognosis.

Educational History

Venkateswaran T.V. (2007). ‘Science and colonialism: content and character of natural sciences in the vernacular school education in the ­Madras Presidency (1820–1900).’ Science & Education 16:87–114.

This study examines the ­scientific education in three types of modern schools, viz. Missionary, Government and Private vernacular schools in the Madras Presidency in the 19th Century. Although in­adequate and elementary, ­science was not totally absent from the scheme of school education in the Madras Presidency and the place of science in the vernacular education and the attendant efforts in publications on science in the vernacular languages can be seen in the context of the sociopolitical ­dynamics of the 19th Century Madras Presidency. This paper locates the place of natural ­sciences in the school education.