I am not sure if this happens elsewhere but here in India, almost every other city has customised songs for garbage trucks urging people to come out and throw their kuppai/kachra. It works for a lot of reasons.

I also don’t know how municipal corporations arrived at this idea to have customised songs. So here I attempt to guess the trajectory of thought because making calculated guesses is my job. Kidding. I am a journalist I just make shit up, zero calculation involved.

It started off with sanitation workers blowing a whistle to announce their arrival. My dad’s (and many others) complaint was that he would mistake it for something else or miss it over the early morning blaring of BhaktiTV and the chaos inside the home. To understand how noisy we can be in the morning, we have to prepare for school, my dad for office and my mum would want all the housework done before we leave. In a 2BHK with one functioning washroom, four schedules should simultaneously align without any last-minute surprises or hiccups. Throwing garbage needs a scheduled break hence the possibility of missing the whistle is high. In this case, the sanitation workers unnecessarily get blamed. But now with a loud jingle, you’d look stupid if you try to blame the sanitation workers. Not to mention blowing the whistle is quite tiresome. So maybe this was the problem they were trying to solve.

A Hindu article claims that this change was implemented in 2021 in Chennai but gives no reasoning for introducing songs. Times of India touched upon the fun aspect of it and quotes a sanitary worker (on anonymity for some reason) who says that the waste management song is a ‘hit among the residents’. It also says that it would motivate people and the sanitary workers.

Its not a novel idea though, vegetable sellers and people who collect old sarees and newspapers (palaya paper, palaya pattu pavadai, angavasthram IYKYK) have had recorded announcements for ages. Something like this…

Aaaaand if the truck comes at around 7am it’s a great alarm. Who am I kidding, 7am is TOO LATE TO WAKE UP.

Anyway coming back to the songs. Usually, the lyrics of famous songs are switched with ones asking people to come throw the garbage and encouraging them to segerate the waste. Some are completely original compositions. It’s amazing really. Here’s a playlist of songs from acorss the country.

But of course, in India by the time you finish asking WhAt-CoUlD- pOsSiBlY-gO-wRoNg, the answer will present itself to you. Last year, a man in Ghaziabad fired shots at sanitation workers as he was annoyed at the Swachhta jingle. So many others don’t like it. People in Srinagar hate it too. So the Ghaziabad man was just expressing himself, the erm…Ghaziabad way. Some others like this kid, love it.

Does this mean the stereotypes about us were true all along? Can we not even throw garbage properly without the corporation composing a song for us? to encourage us!?! Sigh.