Love is in the ear?

Ear-itation

By Aditha DISSANAYAKE

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Remember Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet who says you can beat love down with love? Judging by what goes on at wedding celebrations these days it looks as though you can beat love down with sound too.

Electric drums, guitars, saxophones and a vocalist of indeterminable gender singing Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on...” loud enough to blow the roof to Timbuktu. Not only is the song highly inappropriate as are others like “Brian Adam’s “Cuts like a knife” Chamara Weerasinghe’s Obage Palamu Pemwatha, Chamika Sirimanna’s Api wenwana tharamata kiyanna dewal... sung at a volume loud enough for the entire district to hear. Everyone loves good music but who wants to go deaf listening to it?

If you are a Citizen Perera , depending heavily on public transport you would agree there is nothing like listening to a breezy young man who says in garbled language “next song eka enjoy karanna” followed by a young singer pinning for his lost love - aaa giya, giyaaaaa...ma damaaa..... When you are impatient to get to office in the morning.

As a volley of hard, thumping, aggressive sounds assail you, you have to pinch yourself to make sure this is real - that you are in a bus and not at a musical show at Parliament grounds.

‘I’m not a fuddy-duddy’ assures Uditha Wijesuriya who travels everyday from Dodanduwa to Colombo in A/C buses. “But I am sick to death of having to listen to someone else’s choice of music trapped in a bus early in the morning or after a hard day’s work in the office on my way home”.

Things are no better in other public places. Supermarkets, shopping malls and restaurants have all turned into noisy spaces operating on the assumption that the more background noises the better. Most shoppers seem to believe the sound that comes through loud-speakers is not ‘music’ but ‘upsetting noise’ - and is an infringement on the rights of individuals.

“If you want to listen to music that’s fine, but its not right to assume that everyone else wants to, listen too” shouted one middle-aged lady doing her weekly shopping in a supermarket in Kelaniya obviously not pleased with the sound of Britney Spears in the air. She gave up talking to me with the question, “How can you have a conversation with this kind of noise in the background....? You need to know sign language to talk.

“I suppose you know that the music is not there for your (or any other shopper’s) enjoyment. It’s there because it makes most people spend more money in the store”, says Prabath who insists he never goes to supermarkets to do his shopping.

Elaborating further he added “In the mornings they play slow music to make you take your time and relax more, so you shop more, and in the afternoons faster music so it feels more frantic and you buy whatever is on offer’. Disagreeing with him, Lasith says he likes listening to the piped music because it enlivened his mood.

He was positive too, about the sound of music on telephones “I quite like the music they play when you’re on hold on the phone. It’s better than waiting in silence and I usually get caught singing along when they come back on the line. Once the music was so good I asked them to put me back on hold.”

What about the shop assistants who work in the supermarkets and the shopping malls and who listen to the same old songs over and over again, for at least ten hours of the day? Sharmali, a cashier, says she hardly ever notices it.

A shop assistant who wished to remain unidentified however, had this to say “Its nice to have music to listen to when I am at work. It brings a pleasant change to my dull, lifeless, depressing day at work.

The customers will moan - but they don’t have to stand there for hours on end answering questions about the prices of the goods on sale, listening to dull conversations concerning which item one should buy, and the annoying noise of the cash machine.”

Be it on the phone, in a bus, a taxi, or in the supermarket music today has surely become the inescapable background over which you have little choice. Screamed at you without your permission, choice, or control, here is a prayer for the blissful sound of silence.

Till then, best (quiet) wishes.

Supreme court judgment on noise pollution

by Dr. A. C. Visvalingam

On 9 November 2007, the Supreme Court gave its decision in a case where, in simplified terms, the right of one party to use loudspeakers was weighed against the annoyance, disturbance and harm caused to those other parties who are compelled against their will to listen to the amplified sounds which emanate from these loudspeakers. This judgment has been greatly acclaimed.

However, some readers may not have had the opportunity of reading the entirety of the order, which contains much valuable information regarding the position of the law in respect of noise pollution, especially that caused by the inconsiderate use of loudspeakers.

In the belief that more citizens should be made acquainted with the essence of the judgment, the Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG) examines some of the highlights.

One issue considered by the Court was whether it was permissible to force members of the general public to become captive listeners - in violation of their right to silence and the quiet enjoyment of property - on the grounds that a noise, which is an annoyance to the neighbourhood, is protected if it is made in the course of a religious ceremony, particularly if the Police have issued a license for the use of loudspeakers under Section 90 of the Police Ordinance of 1865.

The Court held that nobody can claim the fundamental right to create noise by amplifying the sound of his speech with the help of loudspeakers because, just as much as one has the right of speech, others have the right to listen or decline to listen. Nobody has the right to make his voice trespass into the ears or minds of others.

As for the religious aspect, the Court has stated clearly that no religious body is entitled, by reason of claimed religious practice, to commit a public nuisance. A police permit is not a protection against being charged for creating a public nuisance under Section 261 of the Penal Code. The Court has indicated that there is no requirement in the teachings of any religion that loudspeakers should be used in its rituals.

Indeed, all of us know that, for a large proportion of the life of the major religions, loudspeakers did not even exist. Happily, judging by the letters appearing in our national newspapers, many of the complaints against Muslim loudspeaker noise come from Muslims themselves and many of the complaints against Buddhist loudspeaker noise come from Buddhists.

There has not been much comment from the followers of the other religions, which may, perhaps, be taken as their acceptance of the reasonableness and fairness of the order of the Court.

Even if a permit is given under Section 90 of the Police Ordinance, the noise emitted from the sound amplification equipment should not be allowed to extend beyond the precincts of the particular premises.

This would apply to outdoor musical performances, too. A sufficient number of Police Officers should be designated and posted to the particular place of use to ensure that the conditions imposed are strictly complied with.

This stipulation, if properly implemented, should take care of the absurd demands of those who donate amplifying equipment to temples, kovils, mosques and churches and then insist that the whole neighbourhood should be made aware of their philanthropy by broadcasting not only religious material but much other rubbish at ear-splitting levels of volume.

M’sick

Acting on a request made by the National Transport Commission, the Industrial Technology Institute surveyed the noise emanating from radios and cassette players in inter-provincial buses in establishing the base line values to lay foundations for the recently introduced regulations.

The main objectives of this survey were two fold; first to evaluate the existing noise levels in the buses and second to evaluate the noise perception by the passengers travelling in the bus.

The survey has shown that more than 80% of the long-distance buses create noise of more than 85 dB and sometimes the noise level goes beyond 90 dB when the cassette player is switched on. Exposure to this noise level for 5 - 6 hours exceeds the maximum daily exposure level of a person to the noise. Long-term exposure to this level of noise may cause hearing impairments later in life.

The irony of this situation in the buses is that the driver and the conductor, who are responsible for introducing this noise, are continually exposed to these noise levels, and are facing a very high risk of hearing impairments than the passengers themselves.

-A.S. Pannila, Head, Electro Technology, Industrial Technology Institute