Editor,
It’s 6 am in the Itanagar Capital Region. The birds are chirping, the sun is rising – and like clockwork, municipal garbage trucks begin their sacred duty of blaring ‘Hai Halla! Indore hai number one!’ across the sleepy hills. Because clearly, nothing says Arunachal pride like a daily reminder that Indore is better than us.
What a brilliant motivational tactic: remind citizens of Arunachal every single morning that a city 2,304 kilometres away is cleaner, richer, and apparently more musical. Maybe the drivers of those garbage trucks are such die-hard Shaan fans that they’ve mistaken civic duty for fan club promotion. Or maybe the municipal corporation truly believes that the key to keeping Itanagar clean is reminding people daily that they’re not Indore. It’s genius, if you think about it – nothing like a constant musical inferiority complex to spark behavioural change!
Meanwhile, musicians, lyricists, and singers from Arunachal are left to wonder if they’ve accidentally become invisible. Or perhaps the unspoken message here is clear: your voice doesn’t matter unless it comes from a Bollywood studio.
One wonders: Have our own songwriters packed up and left for cleaner pastures? Have our music directors taken a vow of silence? Or perhaps our local singers are too melodious to be played on garbage trucks? Surely, someone in Arunachal knows how to hold a tune. Or is it that the Itanagar Municipal Corporation has decided that originality is overrated – and budget-wise recycling doesn’t just apply to plastic bottles, but to anthems too?
And if this is really about musical taste, fine – let’s embrace it. But could we at least rotate the playlist? Maybe throw in a little AR Rahman? Or – dare I suggest – someone from Arunachal? There are enough local artists here who could whip up a swachhta anthem with more soul than a repurposed jingle from central India.
Let’s not forget: Arunachal is a land of vibrant culture, rhythm, and musical talent. So why, in the name of all things swachh, are we outsourcing our soundtrack to Indore?
Unless, of course, Itanagar is applying to be adopted by Indore. In that case, I humbly request a cultural exchange – perhaps we can send them a few Apatani or Galo songs in return?
Or better yet, let’s do what Indore did – build a clean city and make our own theme song about it. Who knows? One day, maybe a garbage truck in Bhopal will be waking up to our anthem.
Bindung Dindo Manj