Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Her songs set the tempo

— Photo: K. Ananthan

MUSIC WITH MESSAGE: K. Banumathy sings her anti-plastic songs at the launch of a campaign by RAAC in the city on Monday.

COIMBATORE: She ensured that the entire meeting was not full of didactic lectures on how to rid the city of plastics and on how to mobilise public support for it.

Residents’ Awareness Association of Coimbatore member K. Banumathy stumped all the dignitaries and the audience with two songs that set the tempo for the association’s anti-plastics drive at its launch here on Monday.

She used the tune of a song from an old Tamil film and replaced its original lyrics with that of her anti-plastics message. It became a hit at the meeting. She described through the song how a woman persuades her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary by cleaning the area near their house in a village.

Ms. Banumathy’s next song was on how plastics enticed people, cling on their hands from the shops, invade their houses and then pollute the environment. Plastics items were monsters that could cause damage without anyone actually realising it, she sang.

When District Collector V. Palanikumar’s turn to speak came up, he said: “I suggest that tapes of these songs be played across the district. These will be enough to motivate the people to shun plastics that cause harm to the environment.”

At the end of the meeting, Ms. Banumathy was in great demand. Members of residential associations asked for her phone number so that they could invite her to the association meetings to sing these songs and motivate people shun plastics. “She can give a clear message. That is why I am inviting her to our area,” Sivananda Colony Residents’ Welfare Association president V. Govindan said.

“I have written nine songs with anti-plastics lyrics and some more on the ill-effects of urbanisation and water scarcity,” says 65-year-old Ms. Banumathy, who has learnt carnatic music.

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