Music and awareness messages are now officially part of every traffic police inspector’s mobile caller tune in Bengaluru. Until a few weeks ago, callers could hear even film songs when they contacted the traffic police department. But now messages like “We care for you, just hold on” and “Your safety is our concern, kindly hold” are heard with the background melody of a violin, played by a young violinist of Bengaluru, Aneesh Vidyashankar.
“For many months now, I have been planning to do something about the caller tunes that were almost bordering on insensitivity to the public’s worried and anxious calls. It’s jarring to hear a loud filmy number when the caller is in distress. So recently, I came up with the idea to help the public listen to these kind words in the background of some soft melody,” said C.K. Baba, DCP (Traffic), Bengaluru East.
Violin was the obvious choice for the DCP for highlighting the messages, as “the instrument is soft, and yet its precision helps one hear it in the background of the message”. As of now, more than 100 traffic inspectors in the city have the message-cum-melody as their caller tune.
Mr. Baba’s keen interest in music and art prompted him to sit down with Mr. Vidyashankar for a few months to consider the various tunes provided by the young violinist. “We considered a whole lot of ragas and zeroed in on ‘kapi,’ which is known to have a calm effect. The second one was in three tracks in ‘desh,’ known for its patriotic leaning,” said Mr. Vidyashankar, an architect who passed out of RV College of Engineering last year.
“My first recording in kapi, in which Mr. Baba himself has voiced the messages, is already being used. I have recorded 30-second jingle-like melodies in desh, which I hear will be used in a host of police projects, including 100, in the days to come,” said Mr. Vidyashankar.
