The Riddle of Noise

Shamim Ahsan

In Dhaka you are never far away from noise. Often it is the deafening hydraulic horn, or the groaning of the ancient engines of cars choking the streets, sometimes it is the grinding machine mixing sand and cement in a nearby construction site or the high voltage shrilly shout in the name of band music in the ‘gaye holud’ programme from the rooftop in your neighbourhood that torment us. Noise follow you at yours heels. Unfortunately, many of us seem to be oblivious of the dear price we have been and will be paying because of our prolonged exposure to noise. As urbanites we must wake up to its adverse effects, if not for our sake, for the sake of our children.

Four p.m. is an apocalyptic time at Motijheel. Thousands of homebound people are engaged in mutual fight to get into whatever transports they can force themselves into. Amid this maddening rush of passengers and transports traffic constable Minhaz is seen patiently directing the erratic Dhaka traffics. The high-pitched, shrilly sound composed of all sorts horns flowing from the all sorts of vehicles, compounded with the shouts from the bus-helpers to attract passengers, don't seem to have any affect on his concentration. In Dhaka, you quickly learn to live in impossible situations.

No other city in the whole world illustrates better the fallout of urbanisation than Dhaka does. Over 10 million people live here in unhygienic proximity, inhale profusely polluted air, drink contaminated supply water, waste hours getting caught in traffic jams or feed the ferocious bloodthirsty mosquitoes sitting in the load shedding-sponsored darkness. If we can live with all these troubles noise pollution in comparison appears hardly threatening. We somehow seem immune to such "commonplace difficulties". In fact, Constable Minhaz doesn't even know what noise pollution exactly means, not to mention the possible health hazard he is exposing himself to. "I don't have any problem whatsoever. Towards the beginning I used to feel a bit disturbed, but over the years I have got used to it," he says in an assuring note.

There are thousands others like Minhaz. In fact, for a large number of city dwellers, noise pollution signifies little. It is at best a temporary irritant, never a grave concern. When Ashraf Hossain, a man in his mid-thirties, who sells cucumber in front of the Head Office of Sonali Bank at Motijheel, was asked the same question, he needed a breather before he could come up with an answer: "Yes, there is some noise here, but, people like me cannot worry about such trifle things."

Cells of the inner ear are damaged and hearing deteriorates each time we are exposed to prolonged intense sound. The most horrible thing in noise-induced hearing loss is that it is permanent and incurable. The cells damaged in this way don't regenerate," reveals a WHO finding.

According to the same study, apart from hearing loss, noise pollution can cause lack of sleep, irritability, heartburn, indigestion, ulcers, high blood pressure and even heart diseases, claims the same study done by WHO.

The effect of noise pollution is proportionate to the duration of exposure to noise pollution. One burst of noise, as from a passing truck, may alter endocrine, and effect neurological and cardiovascular functions in many individuals. Prolonged or frequent exposure to noise tends to make the physiological disturbances chronic. Besides, noise-induced stress creates severe tension and contributes to mental illness.

Children are the most vulnerable to noise pollution. In Dhaka streets with the noise level twice and even thrice the tolerable level is extremely harmful for the children. Besides, the loud music children listen to on stereos, sometimes through earphones or while watching television, or at concerts where the volume is usually extremely loud, impairs hearing and harms their ability to concentrate. As a result, their learning capacity deteriorates. "Since we don't have any statistics about the victims of noise pollution in context of the area they live in and the duration of their exposure to noise, it is not possible to determine exactly how badly noise affects, but the effect is huge without any doubt," says Abu Naser Khan, general secretary of BAPA.

Another problem why noise pollution has grown unabated over the years is the absolute absence of legal intervention by the concerned government authority. Recently the government is working on a detail policy concerning noise pollution, informs Huq. "We, on the part of BAPA, organised a round table discussion where experts, environment activists, representative of civil society, media people, spoke on the issue. Our aim was to accumulate the suggestions and hand over the resolution to the government in the hope that they would incorporate some of them and make the environment policy all-embracing," Huq says. Laws, however, have been always there -- both the BNP and AL made law respectively in 1992 and 1997. However, as always, there has been no effort in applying these laws. "Though it is the responsibility of the Environment Ministry to tackle any environment-related issue, it doesn't have the manpower to monitor the implementation of these laws. Therefore, in absence of an active body that would look over noise-related issues, laws remain ineffectual. The responsibility to curb the violators of environment laws thus now rests with the law-enforcing agency. The police force already overburdened with more pressing duties cannot simply afford to look into these problems," Huq explains.