The noise that drives me up the wall is the sound of motorbikes revving their engines late at night. I'm a twenty-seven-year-old trainee pharmacist in Lahore, and I live in a fairly crowded neighbourhood with my family.
I mostly hear it from our main road, just around the corner from our house, but on weekends groups of young men ride right through our narrow lane too. Some of them have removed the silencers from their bikes deliberately, so it sounds like a gunshot followed by a long roar.
It happens almost every night, usually between eleven and one, and it's worse on Thursday and Friday nights and after cricket matches, when people are celebrating. During the wedding season it can carry on until nearly dawn.
It annoys me for a few reasons. The most obvious one is sleep. I have early shifts at the pharmacy, and being woken at midnight by a sudden explosion of sound makes the next day miserable. My grandmother, who lives with us, is quite frail, and she gets genuinely frightened when it happens. Beyond that, I find it irritating because it's completely unnecessary. Traffic noise is part of city life and I accept that, but this is people choosing to make noise just to show off, without thinking about anyone else. It feels quite selfish. There are rules against modified silencers, but they're rarely enforced. Honestly, I'd be happy if the police set up a few checkpoints at night, because I think a handful of fines would quickly change behaviour.