A pundit with a not-so-pleasant voice leads the congregation (my neighbours and their friends and friends of friends) in singing bhajans praising God in all his divine glory.
They start at around 10 pm and go on till dawn. Which means I either have to drown out the cacophony with the television on at full blast or stuff cotton in my ears. Unfortunately, neither is a solution because the night festivities are held next to my bedroom window. Plus, the microphone the pundit uses is a particularly effective one.
And why, you wonder, I don't complain. Well, I do grumble in the privacy of my home. But I don't say anything to my neighbours -- we have to maintain good relations, you see.
In Delhi, your average middle-class, well-educated Uncleji is quite capable of deflating car tyres or letting loose a volley of unprintables when the occasion calls for it.
God is not deaf. And for all I know, he sleeps at night too. When will my neighbours realise this?
Hey, this seriously cannot happen in Mumbai. If any kind of noise continues after 11 pm, wedding, party, satsang, whatever, we just call the local police station, and they are around in 10-15 minutes to stop it. There are times like Ganpati festival, Diwali, when people manage to get away with festivities until 1 pm, but not later than that. We don't even have to give the police guys our identity on the phone, so our neighbors don't know who's complained. I'm sure you can do it too.
ReplyDeletereminds me of my days in a govt colony in Delhi. Jagarans were a really torture. Once we had an aunt visiting from Kerala and obviously she hadn't heard such a thing in her life. And she actually got up in the middle of the night went down stairs to take a closer look at things
ReplyDeleteBanno: Seems like a good idea. But don't know if it will work in Delhi.
ReplyDeleteEye: The good thing about these jagrans is they seem to happen once in two months or so. Which means I can sleep in peace till the next torture session.