What The Noise???

There is so much noise in the world we live in today. This is especially true in India. For the past few days, I have been living in Raipur. For those of you wondering where is that place, please Google! I took up a nice apartment in an arguably calm part of the city. But, guess what? It is terribly noisy. It seems, suddenly all across the little township where the apartment is located, construction activities have peaked. 
There's the screeching sound of the tile cutting machines from different corners of the house in the day. At night, marriage bands ensure that their sounds reach all across the city. I have a marriage hall half a kilometer across. But, the speakers blaze right into my room.
 It turns out, we Indians are a noisy lot. Be it the farting uncles in marriages or, the screaming maids who talk about the secret next door or, even the prime time anchors. It seems to have become a national mantra that-only when you make noise will you get validation. Back when I was in New Delhi, my roommates used to say they could hear odd sounds of intimacy late at nights from the house behind us (well I was asleep by then)! But, there's a deep problem here. The sound itself is not a problem as long it does not break your ears or, for that matter distract you. Today there's no marriage party without blazing speakers. People above or below you in an apartment will go on an endless repair works hammering, gonging, banging, screeching and slamming the walls. The doers absolutely forget that there are people who may get uncomfortable or even sick of those noises. Students, seniors, pregnant women among others.
There's a flip side to this- we Indians have very high endurance to suffering. We have been enduring corrupt, unjust systems for more than seventy years. We endure bad relationships for decades. We endure horrible bosses for millennia. We endure boring jobs for yugas. In another country, people react. There was just one seemingly innocuous law brought in Hong Kong to punish Chinese tax evaders. People extrapolated its consequences and jumped onto the streets immediately. Today Hong Kong has 'sharpened the contradictions' with China. In Iceland, the Prime Minister found his name in Panama papers. Massive protests erupted to throw him out.  Part of the reason for our behavior is the training that Karma will take its course. I wouldn't be surprised if our genetics has molded to adopt this mantra. 

The solution may lie in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Every time we feel like, chhodh do yaar,  we should resist that feeling and react. Because the truth is, Karma also reacts when we are mute spectators. There's a good quote for this- The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. As responsible citizens and humans, it is our duty to help other humans and protect those who need it. So the next time you witness anything 'not good', act.

Well, I on my part tried talking the tile makers to shift to a more desolate place and cut the tiles there. It turns out they can't. There are economics and hierarchy to it.  😑