Festivals across India may be a source of communal bonding, but it is also a truism that the noise they generate can be harmful to the extreme. When noise pollution activists went around the city checking for decibel levels during the Ganesh immersion, they found that they are way beyond the prescribed limits. In fact, at 115 decibels, the noise on Sunday evening was a record. The next loudest level recorded by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board was in 2010 during Ganesh immersion.

It is a medically acknowledged fact that loud, unwanted noise can result in both physiological and psychological damage. According to the World Health Organisation, “excessive noise seriously harms human health and interferes with people’s daily activities at school, at work, at home and during leisure time. It can disturb sleep, cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects, reduce performance and provoke annoyance responses and changes in social behaviour.”