Editor,
This is in response to the recent letter claiming we must have a ‘balanced view’ of the garbage truck jingle.
With due respect and being general, not personal, whoever wrote that clearly has no sense of music. The sound coming from that truck is not music. It’s shameful even to call a song; it makes us want to puke. It’s just an irritating, dirty noise that assaults our ears every morning. Anyone with the slightest understanding of sound knows how unbearable it is.
That truck has been playing the same jingle for years. And that’s more than enough time for people to become aware and discipline themselves. By now, people should have changed. There is no need for a noisy gong-like reminder to wake them up every single day to throw their trash. It’s not something that needs to be played for a lifetime – as if we’ll keep hearing it till the end of the world.
What balance is there in disturbing people every morning with a loud, repetitive jingle that most don’t even need anymore? It’s not about balance – it’s about laziness in thinking and an excuse to avoid change. Clinging to such noise as a civic necessity only proves a deeper resistance to evolving with time and common sense. Even after years of torture from a noisy garbage truck – and now it’s coming two times a day – people still throw piles of trash in various corners in and around capital. Now tell us – is it only the people willing to change here? Utterly hopeless!
If someone thinks this noise pollution should be accepted in the name of ‘balance’, maybe they’ve already lost touch with what peace and decency sound like.
It’s high time the municipal authority replaced that horrible jingle with something calm and soothing – or better, just stop playing anything at all and do like the other cities do in some tribal states. They should learn from the system of Shillong. In Shillong, they don’t play this kind of jingle and disturb everyone. It is better to learn from other towns/cities. They have set a good example.
Anonymous