Turn down that volume, Mr. Driver

By Tania Fernando

The sound of music blaring above the tooting of horns, and the conductor shouting 'Pitakotuwa, Pitakotuwa' (Pettah, Pettah) or 'issarahata yanna'(go in front), is typical of travel in our public transport.

Once upon a time, the hours you spent on the bus, often stuck in traffic could be spent in quiet contemplation. It was a time to reflect on the day ahead, a good time to make plans and gather one's thoughts. 

But lately, that's been near impossible, unless you have some astounding powers of concentration. For some strange reason, bus drivers and conductors of today seem to feel an obligation to provide passengers with music so loud, they feel like screaming too.

Music, most of us would agree, has the power to soothe and relax, but music blasting through amplifiers at full volume, is something else. The rule today, seems to be: the louder, the better. 

Sitting as far away as possible from the location of the speakers doesn't help either, so great is the volume. Even the couples who use public transport to cuddle at the back are not able to enjoy themselves for they have to shout sweet nothings to be heard above the blaring sounds.

Dinali, a regular traveller complains that she finds the music irritating and annoying. 'Unfortunately, it's not possible to approach the driver or conductor to tell them to reduce the volume. Most often the bus is so crowded that there are people stomping on my feet and pushing me this way and that," she said. 

'I get a headache when the music is so loud,' said Ferial, another commuter. After a hard day's work the last thing you want is music blaring into your ears, she pointed out. 'I don't mind if the music is soft but it's so loud, it just totally drowns your thoughts.'

'Don't they know it's noise pollution? 'I don't think it should be allowed,' Dinali said.

Imtiyaz, another commuter said that the bus driver is so engrossed in listening to music that he sometimes does not hear others tooting the horn. "You can't even have a conversation with the person sitting next to you, without shouting at the top of your voice."

But the drivers themselves are little aware that they are causing offence. Somapala, a driver whose bus plies from Moratuwa to Pettah said that since it takes more than one hour to get to their destination, they try to keep the passengers entertained. He however, could not accept that there could be people who actually did not enjoy the music.

'I don't hear the music, since the outside noise is so loud; that's why I try to play it as loud as possible,' he said.

His conductor Priyantha said that there are times that he has noticed people looking at the amplifiers and at him, but he just ignores them. 'We are doing them a service, so if we want to listen to some music while doing our job, I don't think it's wrong,' he said.

Piyal who used to be a bus driver added though that he could not understand why the buses provide such loud music. 'I think it's just that everyone else is having it, so they think they must too,' he said. 

Meanwhile, an Officer attached to the City Traffic Police said that loud music in vehicles is a punishable offence under the Motor Traffic Act. 'Loud music cannot be played in vehicles. The music should be only restricted to the people inside, he said, adding that those errant drivers can be taken to courts, as this causes noise pollution. But they have no cases pending against anyone playing loud music!

The problem lies not only with the driver, the conductor and the Police but also with us, the passengers who don't see fit to protest. One brave friend of mine did tell the conductor to reduce the volume and taken aback though he was, he obliged. But many of us don't want to risk a torrent of abuse and embarrassment. Maybe the only answer then, is to invest in some ear plugs!

Seeing stars 

More finds for Lankan astronomer

Twenty-nine-year-old Jayawardhana and his colleagues used the recently commissioned Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to discover a protoplanetary disk orbiting one of the stars in a new born quadruple star system. 

The findings were reported a fortnight ago in Washington, DC, at the 199th meeting of the American Astronomical Society by a team led by Jayawardhana, a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkley, and Kevin Luhman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astro-physics.

"What we are looking at is an example of a dusty disk that will probably evolve into a young planetary system over the next several million years," explains Jayawardhana, the author of the book 'Star Factories'.

To date only about 10 edge-on disks similar to this object have been discovered, and two among them are in binary star systems, while this new object is the first discovered in a quadruple star system. 

The new observations used a technique known as adaptive optics, which partially corrects for the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere in images of astronomical sources. 

Jayawardhana is delighted in the knowledge that the sharp images, now provide the opportunity to study the earliest stages of planet formation in remarkable detail. "This is a remarkable demonstration that adaptive optics can help the largest ground-based telescope reach their full potential," he said. 

Adaptive optics works by flexing a thin mirror many times a second into just the right shape to cancel out the effects of rolling air above the telescope. When used on large telescopes, it allows astronomers to obtain images that are as sharp and sensitive as those from space-based obsevatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope. 

The team included Paola D'Alessio (Institute de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) and John Stauffer (SIRTF Science Center, California Institute of Technology).