Mumbai’s Jai Ho Musical Coastal Road: Sound To Be Measured After Residents Complain
Mumbai’s first musical road on the Coastal Road is already facing serious pushback from people who live around it. The stretch, designed to play the tune of “Jai Ho” when cars drive over special grooves, has triggered noise complaints from Breach Candy residents just weeks after it was opened. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has now decided to test decibel levels at the nearest buildings and study how loud the road really is for people living next to it.
The Jai Ho melody section is around 500 metres long on the northbound lane, just after motorists exit the underground tunnel at Breach Candy. The tune plays clearly when vehicles pass over the grooves at about 70 to 80 kmph, which means traffic going at a steady clip is effectively sending a constant soundtrack into the neighbourhood through the day.
The basic idea behind the musical road is fairly simple. Engineers have cut grooves into the surface in a very specific pattern. When tyres pass over these grooves at a particular speed, they create vibrations that our ears hear as musical notes. Line up the spacing and depth correctly, and those notes form a recognisable tune inside the car.
On the Mumbai Coastal Road, that tune is A R Rahman’s Jai Ho. Drivers are alerted in advance with signage placed a few hundred metres before the musical section, so they can hold a steady speed and hear the melody inside the cabin. For someone commuting from Nariman Point towards Worli, it is meant to break the monotony of a daily drive and add a bit of novelty to the brand-new sea link style corridor.
From a pure driving point of view, many motorists see it as a fun party trick. The road is smooth, the tune is familiar, and when traffic conditions allow, it can be a small “reward” for maintaining lane discipline and a steady speed over that stretch.
The problem starts when you look at the same feature from a building balcony instead of a car seat. Residents of Breach Candy housing societies facing the road have said that the sound is not a one-time amusement but a repeating background noise from 6 am to midnight. Since every car driving at the right speed triggers the melody, the result is a never-ending loop that drifts into nearby homes.
Multiple families have complained that they cannot comfortably keep their windows open and that the sound echoes inside their flats, especially at night. For them, what was marketed as a creative infrastructure idea has turned into a disturbance, particularly in a high value, dense residential zone where people expect some degree of peace despite the city’s traffic.
This clash between a “fun” driving feature and day to day liveability is what has forced the civic body to step in and formally study the noise impact.
In response to the complaints, the BMC has asked the contractor to measure decibel levels at the nearest residential buildings instead of only looking at sound inside vehicles. The idea is to see whether the musical stretch is pushing noise exposure beyond acceptable levels for people living in the area.
The civic body has also asked its consultant to suggest technical options to reduce the disturbance without completely scrapping the concept. On the table could be solutions like changing the groove pattern to lower the volume, shortening the musical stretch, reducing operating hours, or tweaking the speed band at which the tune plays so that it is triggered less frequently.
For now, the road continues to function as designed, which means motorists still get Jai Ho when they drive at the right speed. But it is clear that the feature is no longer just a social media friendly talking point. It is under formal review, and any changes that come next will have to balance the driver experience with the basic right of nearby residents to quiet evenings and undisturbed sleep.
If you plan to drive on this stretch, it is worth remembering that for someone on the other side of the glass, your few seconds of musical joy might be part of a very long, very loud day.