Noise post-coronavirus

Noise pollution is more hazardous than terror attacks. It is no less than the damage from biological warfare. Coming to the impact, in the latter case, a few masks and a bit of hand hygiene may protect us.  But in the case of loud noises,  we cannot get away from them at home or outside. And even if we shut our doors and ears, the vibrations of the noise can still pierce the glass and wood including brick and mortar structures, and its waves bang the surfaces including our skin and bones. This impact rises BP and anxiety levels and may cause even panic attacks.  We hear about elephants getting terrorized by loud noises thanks to people beating drums and/or blowing trumpets. The combined atmospheric din in the cities is like an unseen shroud wrapped around us applying pressure to our mind and body alike that makes us unable to think clearly. (The reason why I'm writing so badly). It's as if we are living in a cauldron of city din covered by a lid and left to live like that.

By the way, I live in one such busy neighborhood. About 30 years ago our apartment used to be in a remote part of the city. With the fast-growing city enveloping us, anybody making a call would often say to me that they had better called me after I reached my home. This was even when I was inside my closed bedroom in the dead of the night. After the corona pandemic has entered our lives, the traffic sounds have thinned out which is a blessing in disguise.  I realized I was carrying the weight of the street noises in my head all these years like mythological Atlas holding up the globe before the novel Coronavirus era. But come festivities,  Coronavirus or not, the ugly, atavistic, and esoteric pleasure derived by some neighborhood denizens out of the loud noises they make for some sadistic pleasure that is known only to themselves in making the fellow residents suffer for no fault of theirs had to be seen to be believed. They get an esoteric kick through a rise in noise from loudspeakers or percussion instruments, or even by using otherwise lame musical instruments all in the name of religion, fete, celebration, ceremony, custom, practice, or merely a show-off to display their money and muscle power with impunity from the namesake law enforcement machinery. Hell has no fury worse than loudspeakers as if the motor cars, factory engines, TVs, politicians exchanging brickbats on the floor of the house or TV studios, etc. are not enough. I think the sounds made by the fighting collectors of water from the taps that used to be in the street corners in my childhood and the joke about the noises of gossips over the fence that could drown the sounds of Niagara Falls are a passe, after the arrival of social media chats, perhaps.