August 30, 2025 07:40 AM IST First published on: Aug 30, 2025 at 07:40 AM ISTMaybe it was all the isolation during the pandemic, the long hours spent alone with one’s curated play or watchlist. But when the world reopened afterwards, it brought with it the curse of the sonic hell — a forced inclusion in an ambient noise bubble — one reel, one conversation, one cooking video at a time. Nowhere has it been more amplified than on public transport across the world, where buses and trains have turned into makeshift amphitheatres for YouTube talk shows and WhatsApp voice notes, each coach a cacophony of personal content made uncomfortably communal. For the unwilling audience, it’s death by audio snippets. Now, London’s public transit authority has come out with a campaign for consideration along its network, spreading the headphone gospel for the comfort of all commuters.The idea is premised less on penalties and more on an unspoken social contract: Shared space demands shared responsibility, nowhere better upheld than in Japan, for instance. On the Shinkansen, etiquette is a well-rehearsed choreography. People line up in neat files, mobile phones are muted, and even the bento boxes seem to know not to crinkle too loudly in the rare instance of a commuter eating aboard. The unspoken rule of the commute remains unchanged despite the staggering increase in tourist footfall: Thou shalt not disturb.AdvertisementThere is, of course, no such possibility in the Subcontinent, where chaos is like a performing art in most countries and where commutes on public transport feel like a reunion, albeit with distant relatives, the minutiae of whose lives one has no interest in. To be fair, there’s a kind of anarchic charm to it, a certain tolerance even for intrusion. India’s public spaces are anything but lonely. But a spot of civility wouldn’t go amiss. After all, must one be made an unwilling participant in someone’s morning motivational video or a witness to a stranger’s breakup in Dolby surround sound?