No-Honking Days and Noise Barriers Aim to Quell Mumbai’s Cacophony
Activists say their efforts to quiet India’s financial capital can show the way for other loud places.
An elevated highway known as the JJ Flyover was the loudest place in Mumbai documented by the Awaaz Foundation.
Photographer: Catherine Davison for Bloomberg Businessweek
Living in Mumbai requires an inexhaustible tolerance for noise. There’s the ceaseless revving of autorickshaw engines and the clamor of car horns as drivers edge through impenetrable traffic. There’s pounding and buzzing from the construction of office towers, apartment buildings and a new metro line. Drumbeats and trumpet melodies spill out from wedding celebrations and countless festivals. And it’s all topped off by bellowing street vendors and garbage trucks blasting Bollywood songs.
So when Sumaira Abdulali began campaigning against noise pollution in India’s financial capital two decades ago, friends, acquaintances and even her attorneys insisted it was a fool’s errand. “People told me it’s ridiculous to even try, because Indians love noise,” she says. “We’re a noisy country.”