Shrieks, Horns, Bells and Bangs

After attending long office hours amid gigantic machines and before huge computers, when we make our way to the urban road, another job just then begins; and the latter job is tougher than the former one; moreover, this job is not a paid one! Minds alert, focused eyes with vigilant hands and feet when we drive on a busy city road with hotchpotch patterns of vehicle lanes, we have to encounter almost all forms of noise pollution: shrieks, horns, bells and other bangs.

Noise pollution is becoming a major problem in our urban lives and most of us don't even bother to pay attention to it or include it in our list of problems. In other words, it has silently become a part of our lives and we don't even consider it a problem which is rather a root cause of man other problems. Just think for a while when we reach our homes after struggling through our jobs at office and on the roads, why do our kids' chuckles or siblings' jokes or parents' discussions seem unpleasant noise to us?

There are many problems that can solely be associated with noise pollution, for example, hearing issues, aggressive behavior, disturbance of sleep, constant stress, fatigue, hypertension, etc. Our ears can bear a certain range of sounds and louder than that range can cause a serious damage to our ears like damaged eardrums and gradual loss of hearing. We can become less sensitive to normally pitched sounds; in other words we can call it slight hearing impairment which can gradually lead to complete deafness.

When talking about solutions to this issue, the whole society needs to be reformed. On a lighter note, something equal to the 'reprogramming of the human minds' is to be done especially in Pakistan. Speaking seriously, we can introduce certain traffic rules or initiate awareness programs at different levels of the society to groom the minds of the general public. We can introduce tangible traffic reforms like challan on the unnecessary use of horns; but who will decide this 'unnecessary' thing and what will be the measures for it? However, one thing that can be very much tangible on individual level is the protection of ears using certain things like earplugs, turning the volumes down and giving proper rest to ears and mind. We, as individuals, have to do this on emergency basis if we really don't want to gulp multiple types of tablets and capsules.