Ganpati Noise and Your Ears: How Loud Is Too Loud?

Ganeshotsav is the best fortnight of the year in Pune, and it is also the loudest. Every year after visarjan we see the same patients: young people whose ears have been ringing since the procession, parents worried about a child who was near a dhol-tasha pathak, and older patients whose hearing aids were overwhelmed by the sound. Most recover. Some do not, and that is worth ten minutes of your time before the festival starts.

This is not an argument against the celebration. It is a short, practical guide to how loud the procession actually gets, what that does to an ear, and the handful of precautions that let you be there for all of it without paying for it later.

How loud is Pune's visarjan, really?

We are unusually well informed about this. COEP Technological University has measured noise along the Laxmi Road immersion route every four hours through the procession, for twenty-five consecutive years. In 2025 the overall average across the route was 92.6 decibels, with a peak of 109.3 decibels recorded at Khanduji Chowk. In earlier years the 24-hour average has reached as high as 114 decibels.

To put that in context, ordinary conversation is around 60 decibels and heavy city traffic around 80. The decibel scale is logarithmic, not linear, so every 10-decibel rise is roughly a doubling of perceived loudness. A jump from 80 to 110 is not a little louder. It is a different order of exposure.

What loud noise actually does to the ear

Sound is picked up by thousands of microscopic hair cells in the inner ear. Very loud noise damages those cells, and unlike skin or bone, they do not grow back. Sustained exposure at around 90 decibels and above can cause permanent hearing loss, and a single very loud burst close to the ear can do it in one go.

The damage is often silent at first. What people notice instead is ringing in the ears, or a muffled feeling, as if the ear is blocked. That usually settles within a day or two. When it does not, the loss underneath it may already be permanent, which is why the follow-up matters as much as the precaution.

Who needs to be more careful

• Children, whose ear canals are smaller and who cannot move themselves away from the sound
• Older adults, who often have some age-related hearing loss already
• Anyone with diabetes or high blood pressure, both of which affect the blood supply to the inner ear
• People who already have tinnitus, or hearing loss in one ear
• Hearing aid users, who should turn devices down or remove them near the procession
• Pathak members and volunteers, who face the exposure for hours rather than minutes

Enjoying the procession without damaging your hearing

• Carry simple foam earplugs. They cut roughly 20 to 30 decibels and still let you hear the dhol
• Keep distance: even ten to fifteen metres from a speaker stack or pathak makes a real difference
• Take breaks. Step into a side lane for ten minutes every hour to let your ears recover
• Keep small children well back, and consider ear muffs for them rather than plugs
• Do not put cotton wool in the ears and assume you are protected, it does very little
• If your ears hurt during the procession, that is not toughness to push through, move away

When ringing ears need a doctor

Ringing or muffled hearing straight after the procession is common and usually settles in a day or two. Get it checked if it is still there after two or three days, if it is only in one ear, or if it comes with pain, discharge or dizziness.

One situation is genuinely urgent. If you notice a sudden, marked drop in hearing, particularly in one ear, see an ENT doctor immediately rather than waiting to see if it improves. Sudden sensorineural hearing loss is treatable, but the treatment works best when it is started within the first few days, and the window closes quickly.

Getting your hearing checked

A hearing test is quick, completely painless, and gives you a clear baseline to compare against in future years. At Prudent International Health Clinic in Viman Nagar we can assess your hearing, examine the ear, and where dizziness or balance problems are part of the picture, run advanced balance testing in our in-house vestibular lab. We are open all seven days, and after visarjan we keep slots for exactly this. Enjoy the festival, and bring the earplugs.