Too loud for comfort

Coming to the city from the tranquil hills and getting accustomed to the din of modern life had posed an interesting challenge for me. In the cacophony of loudspeakers, vehicles, machines and gadgets, I realised that in the past few years, our voices too had reached a crescendo. For in the humdrum of things, we were constantly shouting to make ourselves heard, when the same things could have been said in a calmer tone. I often had to filter through the piercing tones around me to decipher the real meaning of the words.

People’s need to roar during normal conversations has me in a spot of bother. My aunt’s full-throated talk on her cellphone could be heard from two blocks away, and had earned her the nomenclature, ‘Decibel aunty’. The younger or rather the headphone generation, as I call them, would inevitably talk loudly to overcome the jangling in their own ears. My routine discussions with the gardener had reached a queer pitch, as each time he would adopt a higher verbal strain, I would often look around furtively and walk away lest someone mistook it for a fight.

My flight to India would be the noisiest. It seemed my country mates were so fond of their voice that they made sure the others did not miss their blessed volume. Their ear-splitting calls across the cabin were good enough to crush any soft-spoken person’s eardrums.

When and how had we become so was hard to say, but we had upped the ante in every aspect of our lives, be it clothes, music, functions or conversations. Our movies would show the courtroom drama, as a clash of the titans, with fierce overtones. Thankfully, real-life courts were just the opposite.

So did Amitabh Bachchan’s calm and controlled baritone. I would emulate him whenever I got into a squawky mode with my children. The moment I rolled out the instructions in a lower base, they would instantly fall in line.

I grew up hearing the soothing tones of Doordarshan news readers. The deafening slugfest of present-day news mongers now mercilessly shatters the peace of my drawing room.

My Irish teacher in school would always insist on us being as graceful as queens. She would ask, ‘Does it behove a queen to shout at others?’ Certainly not! And in turn, we would all try to be soft and sweet with one another.

In the modern-day jamboree, it was hard to sift for all the kings and queens, who would rather not holler around and lose their crown. No wonder, the need for a rejuvenating break, far away from the madding crowd, was a good idea. Perhaps we could all do better with a peaceful volume in our daily lives too.