Festival season has a sound of its own dhol beats, mic-heavy pandal announcements, processions passing right under your window, celebrations that go on well past what feels reasonable. It's part of what makes the season feel alive. But there's a quieter cost to all that sound that most families never think about until it's already done some damage: your hearing. Dr. Sanjeev Mohanty sees a small but real rise in hearing complaints every year right after major festival weeks — and the pattern is almost always the same. Someone stood close to a speaker for "just a few minutes," or a child was carried through a loud procession, or a family spent hours near pandal sound systems without a second thought about the volume. fig 1. Loudspeakers, Processions and Your Ears: The Hidden Cost of Festival Season Why this actually matters Sound is measured in decibels, and the scale isn't gentle — it's logarithmic, meaning every 10-decibel increase represent...
It happens the same way every year. The first proper rain arrives, the city cools down, everyone's relieved after the heat — and then, a few days in, your ears start feeling strangely full. Like you're underwater, or wearing invisible earplugs. You yawn, you try the old cotton-bud trick, you wiggle your jaw. Nothing quite fixes it. Dr. Sanjeev Mohanty sees a genuine spike in exactly this complaint every time the rains set in around Chennai. It's not your imagination, and it's not "just weather." There's a real, explainable reason your ears act up during the monsoon — and understanding it makes the whole thing far less annoying to deal with. Fig 1. Why Your Ears Feel Blocked Every Time It Rains Why humidity specifically targets your ears Moist air doesn't just sit outside — it changes what happens inside your ear canal too. Warm, damp conditions are exactly what certain fungi and bacteria need to multiply, especially in a canal that's already a ...