Christmas or Easter are not festivals of noise

I am glad that the Bombay High Court has sought a report from the Maharashtra Home Secretary about noise pollution in Mumbai and compliance with the noise control regulations in force.

It has given me a chance to take up with the Home Secretary my efforts for the last eight years – yes, eight years! – to get my parish church to stop firing crackers at night after the 10 p.m. curfew in “celebration” after the Christmas Eve and Easter vigil services.

Non-religious music has also been played on the loudspeaker system used for the church services held in the open air on both occasions. This is a clear abuse of the extension beyond 10 p.m. deadline given purely for purposes of the religious services being audible to the open-air congregation.

I have made every effort to get the priests in my parish – mostly rural boys from the south who do not understand the situation in Mumbai or their own parishioners and don’t want to learn either! – that this is not done if they are true followers of the man who said, “Do unto others as they do unto you!”

I wrote to the Archbishop of Bombay, Cardinal Ossie Gracias, who agreed with me that this should stop and asked his local bishop, Percival Fernandes to take up the matter. The only thing that has happened is that instead of the crackers being fired from the terrace of the church, they are now fired from the periphery to make it seem that the church has nothing to do with them.

But the timing of the firing of crackers, in synchronization with key prayers during the service or when the priests are leaving the altar, is a clear indication that this is being done with the connivance of the priests.

If the priests do not connive with the perpetrators of this unwarranted noise pollution, the Parish Priest, Claudy Vaz, should have been the first to complain to the local police about the violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court of India. He hasn’t!

Worse, when I went to the parish office to persuade him to show consideration for the old and the young, for those who might be sleeping after ten, I was advised by the assistant parish priest, Anto Vijayan, a smart but immature young man too full of himself, to first stop people in wedding processions firing crackers on the road.

I thought Christians who consider themselves several levels superior to others – and especially Christian preachers like Anto who preach about environmental pollution – set their own benchmark.

I then went to the police who do not seem to be interested in enforcing the law either! As one of them told me, “these are sensitive matters because these are matters of dharma.” I would think this is a matter of adharma because the firing of crackers is not a part of Christian religious rituals either during the day or night!

I thought it was the job of the police to enforce the law regardless of dharma or adharma, and regardless of the dharma of the complainant or the violator. But that is not so. But that does not deter me. I have fought several battles over several decades in a 39-year-long journalistic career and this one is far from over!

I am now looking forward to the Bombay High Court taking up the matter and cracking the police as well as my parish priests on the knuckles for making a mockery of Silent Night, Holy Night, or the solemn Easter Vigil with their misconceived idea of “celebration”.

Watch this space!