Mumbaikars begin Ganpati festival on a thunderous note

The city of Mumbai welcomed its beloved God Ganesha with full enthusiasm amid a huge hue and cry over silence zones.

Lakhs of devotees who ushered in the celebrations since Thursday night, ‘diligently followed’ the Maharashtra government’s statement in court in which it declared that there are no “silence zones” in the city and beyond.

The devotees took full benefit of this statement and kept their loudspeakers, dhols and other equipment at the highest possible pitch. As they ushered into their celebrations, they paid no heed to the appeal of the Mumbai Police not to create noise pollution. Also, it would be no wrong to say that they did not took any care of the ‘disturbance and inconvenience’ they were causing to the citizens owing to their playing of drums and loudspeakers among others.

Annoyed by the high level of noise emitting from these equipment, citizens took it to Twitter and sought help from the Mumbai Police but to their misfortune, thier complaints were plainly forwarded to the control room.

One Twitter user from Lalbaug area tweeted at 3:28 am in the morning saying, “Nasik dhols playing all night in our area. The police concerned neither take calls and nor is it taking any action. Even the patrolling cops are not taking any action, how should we sleep in the night especially senior citizens?”

Another citizen tweeted, “Noise pollution at its peak at this time (12:00 am) near Malad’s Chincholi road.”

A similar tweet was posted by another user of the same area who wrote, “Full voume music being played at a society near Chincholi road, Malad. Please get this acted on and stop this noise pollution.”

Interestingly, the Mumbai police did replied to these “affected and concerned” citizens but only sought either their “exact location” or said, “We have informed the control room about your plaint.”