I have heard from a large number of people that, you either end
up loving or hating India. My husband likes to say, he is different because he
does not love or hate it here. I have my days, some days I enjoy India and some
days I want to scream…I think you can guess why I want to scream.
Last night tipped the balance for me. India is loud and in
your face, all the time, at all hours of the day and night. Most of the time I don’t
mind, although I tend to be somewhat of a quiet and gentle person, I really don’t
mind in your face India during the day. During the night I put in ear-plugs,
something I have been doing since I have lived in big and loud cities such as
New York, DC, Budapest, Tel Aviv, and Damascus. Earplugs work, for the most part.
In every city you will have obnoxious neighbors, garbage
pick-up at odd hours, street vendors, guys that knock on your door to wake you
up for your breakfast before sunrise (during Ramadan), church bells and call of
the muezzin, and oh those parents that think their kid is truly talented and
therefore encourage him to practice his/her drums and off key singing at 7 AM
on a given Saturday or Sunday morning. I
usually roll with the punches on the above mentioned aspects of city life.
However, the following situations tip the balance and make
me want to scream (listed in order of scream factor):
- Having one’s neighbors have parties in the yard with drums, really bad but nevertheless loud sound amplifying equipment, electric key board, and awful pitch from 9:30 PM – 12:30 AM
- Having one’s neighbors do the same as in 1. at 3 – 6 AM
Number 2 makes me want to scream, literally. If we lived
next to a religious establishment, that would be one thing. In Damascus, I
lived in a house adjacent to the Sayyidah Ruqayya mosque and heard the call to
prayer every morning at 4 AM. The difference is that the call to prayer is beautiful,
and as far as I know, people with no sense of music and pitch are not allowed
to perform it. The call to prayer is rhythmic, which does not disturb your sense
of internal balance and does not last very long, therefore you are able to fall
asleep again.
We live in a residential neighborhood with neighbors that
think its perfectly fine to fire up their amplifiers and sing their hearts out
for the neighborhood to enjoy at 3 AM in the morning. I found out today after
attempting to complain that, yes there are zoning laws that prohibit noise from
10PM – 6 AM and no, even if I call the cops, I will not be able to prevent this
event from taking place whenever my neighbors feel like firing up their awful
sound system, electric keyboard, drums and not particularly talented lungs.
So, I guess this post is about the pendulum swinging to the
dark side. I hope to swing the other way soon.
