Quiet, Please!

I have huge issues with noise. Especially when I am chilling at home or trying to focus on work in office.
All kinds of noise — kids screaming on the playground below, neighbors arguing/laughing loudly, pigeons going about doing what they do best — eat, copulate, poop and coo non-stop! Oh also, boisterous house parties, persistent honkers, shrill mobile-talkers, water-cooler gabbers. Worst of all, a string of public cultural events through the year that seem incomplete to organizers unless they blare music on loudspeakers until the wee hours. Lastly, weekend contract laborer dude doing an honest Sunday’s work on that earth-shattering tile-cutter in someone’s fancy kitchen-renovation-in-progress, slicing beige vitrified granite tiles with gusto.
Every once in a while I go through a short-lived bout of self-doubt — is it just me? Why does it bother me so much? How come others seem to not notice the unbearable din? After one such recent self-flagellation, I did a bit of quiet soul-searching and came to this conclusion —you can raise a bit of ruckus about a few noisy scenarios but for the most part you pretty much suffer alone. Quietly.
Noisy Scenario: 01 — Restaurant/Pub/Lounge
I must say, I have nailed this one. You walk into a restaurant. First thing, grab the best table available, make yourself comfortable, order your beers, some food. Next, time for a sound test. Is the music too loud? Yes? Call the attendant over. As he bends across the table to hear you over the bass-y remix of Kala Chasma blaring away, you politely request him, “Boss, can you please reduce the volume?” Most often, it works. That’s because I figured out a strategy — arrive as soon as they open for dinner. As the evening progresses, patrons stroll in, good-humored chatter begins to rise above your own conversation with your partner, things pick up speed, and so does the music tempo. At a certain point, if a DJ is doing duty, he/she pretty much is deaf to your pleas for a quieter evening since he is already in the throes of his kick-ass playlist reaching a crescendo. Best to eat, drink, scoot. In double time.
And no, the hospitality business or for that matter, the retail business — read, malls — doesn’t believe in playing the right music for the right occasion or the kind of joint they run. It’s party time, every time, everywhere! Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love music. I am just a bit more discerning about it.
Noisy Scenario: 02— shrill mobile-talkers / water-cooler gabbers in office
This one is sort of work-in-progress for me. I am usually the one who, after gritting my teeth in agony for some time, springs up from my desk and quietly walks to the culprit in the office corridor, who as you can imagine is blissfully unaware that he is the singular cause of the entire design studio’s 10x productivity loss for the day, who by now are not just distracted by the shrill-talker but also his nemesis — that’s me who is stomping over to shut ‘em up! The way this situation pans out is simple. I gesticulate — because I don’t really want to disturb his super-important conversation — asking him to calm down a bit. The response is immediate. A sheepish grin, a nod, a quick bow and the decibel level drops suddenly by at least 62% but by the time I turn around and walk to my desk, he’s paced back and forth once but the decibel level is back to where it was. So, as I said, this one is work-in-progress.
Noisy Scenario: 03 — Boisterous house parties
Best tackled by launching an offensive. Going on the offensive comes easily in this case because you have a high moral ground. It’s middle of the night, you are trying to sleep and they are robbing you of it. In the civilized behavior stakes, you have already won. Also, I guess, when groggy-eyed and pissed, the only way to get the message across to the auditory predators — who are drowning in their own pool of lethal sound waves — is a primal holler across the hallway, “Guyss!! Can you keep it down, trying to sleep here!”
This in most cases has worked. Except one. It was a beach resort in Kerala. Why were we there? To escape to a quiet place, no? My wife and I are in our cabana next to another cabana meant for maximum 2–3 people, but populated by what seemed like the entire Mohan Bagan football team from Bengal. My first primal holler at 11pm didn’t work. Jolted out of a delirious sleep at 2am, my wife beat me to the 2nd primal holler and all hell broke loose. I am certain there would have been blood in the courtyard but for the security arriving on time to diffuse a truly volatile situation. Did I mention something about football fans?
Noisy Scenario: 04— weekend contract laborer/distant unknown loudspeaker
Here is where I lay down my weapons. What can you possibly tell a guy who is earning a living the only way he knows? But I tried once. It was the apartment right above us. This was no tile-cutting. This was hard-core-cutting. The said guy was drilling the hell out of a staircase. Knocked on the door. Said guy opens the door with a look that says, noise? what noise?
Look, it’s a contract for a day. He’s got to finish his work in the time stipulated by the Apartment Owners’ Association which incidentally falls around Sunday Siesta time. Sometimes being understanding and accommodating ensures you keep biting yourself in the buttock.
The last one is a mystery. You don’t know the source of the loudspeaker. It blares through the day and night. You only know it’s a cultural event based on the songs being played. As cultural events in India go, no one runs them. They run by themselves. And no one knows where the volume button is located. Less said the better. Just listen.
I realized the above tactical approaches are not quite sustainable. So I strategized. What if I insulate myself from all the external sources of noise? At least at home?
I wasn’t dreaming of the Earth’s Quietest Place, but maybe something out there must come close? So I researched some soundproofing options. DIY including inquiries on Quora about paid soundproofing services that would have cost me one of the larger organs in my body.
And so, my quest for quiet continues. For now, I have settled on something a bit cheaper and disposable — earplugs.
