A fair moved into the open ground 3 blocks from our apartment complex. Our understanding was that they'd leave in a fortnight. Not only did they stay, they played very loud music (on a loud speaker) all the way till 10:30pm.. FOR A MONTH.
People at home started to get irritable in the evenings because there was no room in the house that the noise did not pervade. Everyone being Indian here also meant there was also a lot of whining, complaining & negativity about the loud music everyday (with no initiative being taken about solving the problem). I knew I had to do something when my old father started to hum 'Sheila ki jawani' (one of the songs repeated 10 times a day on the fair ground loud-speaker) in a very out-of-tune manner.
10pm the next day I called the local police precinct and informed the officer (operator) that we were having a huge noise pollution problem because of a neighboring fair. He asked my name & I told him. I asked if they would keep it confidential & he said they would. He then asked me the address of the location where the sound was emanating from & I gave it to him. I was very polite all the way through & addressed him as 'sir'. Once he had all the details he'd asked, for he said he would inform a patrol officer about the problem. I thanked him and hung up. 20 minutes later they cut the music. It was that simple. The next day the music started up again but I didn't wait for it to be 10pm. I placed pretty much the same complaint, supplied pretty much the same information and got pretty much the same response. Once again - 20 minutes later they cut the music. The key word I used was "loud speaker" which apparently is grounds for immediate action.
My advice to those that suffer from noise pollution:
1. Call the local Police Control Room (justdial or the yellow pages will have this info).
2. Find out the phone number of your local police precinct (chowki) from the Police Control Room.
3. Call your local police precinct (chowki) and inform them of the problem.
5. Be sure you have the address of the 'problem location'. The police will not go by general directions and they are not authorised to act on their own.
6. If the problem persists, go to the police station in person & lodge a complaint. At least you'll have something to go by if you later have to invoke the RTI act.
7. Be polite to the police officers you talk to. They make it a point to ignore the rude.
And above all: Ask and ye shall receive!
I was extremely impressed at the speed with which the Ramwadi Police Station in Pune acted on my behest. Not even the local council in London (where I lived for some years) moved that quickly when called about noise issues!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Unlikely power for domestic workers.
Two people I've known (husband & wife) and respected since childhood deeply disappointed me by the way they spoke to their house maid (let's call her Laxmi). There was no physical abuse involved but lots of emotional distress from what I could see.
The man would heap insults on her liberally for not cutting his salad right, making his tea too strong and going to her room when she had nothing else to do in the kitchen. The woman would constantly nag her for not doing things just so and wake her up at ungodly hours in the night to make her some tea. The yelling and nagging started at 7am and stopped at 10:30pm.
What made this especially hard to stomach was that the maid had left an abusive home to escape beatings and inhuman treatment. Although she was semi-literate in a regional language, she knew knew how to punch in numbers into her cell phone (the card of which belonged to the owners of the house she worked in). She didn't have a bank account because she didn't even have a voter ID card or a ration card. There was nothing on record to even show that she existed.
I had heard of folks calling house-maid & domestic servant placement bureaus/agencies to fill positions for domestic staff. The bureaus sent them the required help & collected a fee from the employer. They are also required (by law) to collect other information from the employer to protect the safety of the placed staff. Laxmi had never heard of these bureaus. I promptly called one I found on justdial and asked if they'd be willing to place a maid I was calling on behalf of. They said they could & got to work. I sincerely beleived that it made a difference that I called on behalf of Laxmi. Perhaps they took this placement a tad seriously when they found that the girl had support from a middle class individual.
Several phone calls & a couple of interviews later Laxmi had a position available at another household where she felt she would be treated better and she left for her new job. She also had the phone number of the placement agency. The agency had requested that the new owner help her fill out an application for a voter ID card & also get her a SIM card for her cell phone (for which she would pay him). I called to find out how she was doing a couple of weeks later & learnt that although the people she worked for were nice, they'd not communicated correctly to her the amount of work she was expected to do. She'd called the maid placement agency & asked to me moved to a new position since she wasn't able to deal with the amount of house-work. The agency in turn called her employer & worked out a better system where her work load was reduced.
It turns out that the fee rendered to placement agencies upon the placement of a domentic worker is almost always non-refundable. This puts the agency (and indirectly the domestic worker) in a position to bargain. Although the middle class constantly complains about this factor & claims it is mis-used by agaencies & maids to 'gouge' them, the situation is not entirely without merit.
Laxmi continues to work for her new employers & is much happier there. The phone number of the maid placement bureau gives her some power. And it is only with power that any of us can have dignity.
This is a true story.
The man would heap insults on her liberally for not cutting his salad right, making his tea too strong and going to her room when she had nothing else to do in the kitchen. The woman would constantly nag her for not doing things just so and wake her up at ungodly hours in the night to make her some tea. The yelling and nagging started at 7am and stopped at 10:30pm.
What made this especially hard to stomach was that the maid had left an abusive home to escape beatings and inhuman treatment. Although she was semi-literate in a regional language, she knew knew how to punch in numbers into her cell phone (the card of which belonged to the owners of the house she worked in). She didn't have a bank account because she didn't even have a voter ID card or a ration card. There was nothing on record to even show that she existed.
I had heard of folks calling house-maid & domestic servant placement bureaus/agencies to fill positions for domestic staff. The bureaus sent them the required help & collected a fee from the employer. They are also required (by law) to collect other information from the employer to protect the safety of the placed staff. Laxmi had never heard of these bureaus. I promptly called one I found on justdial and asked if they'd be willing to place a maid I was calling on behalf of. They said they could & got to work. I sincerely beleived that it made a difference that I called on behalf of Laxmi. Perhaps they took this placement a tad seriously when they found that the girl had support from a middle class individual.
Several phone calls & a couple of interviews later Laxmi had a position available at another household where she felt she would be treated better and she left for her new job. She also had the phone number of the placement agency. The agency had requested that the new owner help her fill out an application for a voter ID card & also get her a SIM card for her cell phone (for which she would pay him). I called to find out how she was doing a couple of weeks later & learnt that although the people she worked for were nice, they'd not communicated correctly to her the amount of work she was expected to do. She'd called the maid placement agency & asked to me moved to a new position since she wasn't able to deal with the amount of house-work. The agency in turn called her employer & worked out a better system where her work load was reduced.
It turns out that the fee rendered to placement agencies upon the placement of a domentic worker is almost always non-refundable. This puts the agency (and indirectly the domestic worker) in a position to bargain. Although the middle class constantly complains about this factor & claims it is mis-used by agaencies & maids to 'gouge' them, the situation is not entirely without merit.
Laxmi continues to work for her new employers & is much happier there. The phone number of the maid placement bureau gives her some power. And it is only with power that any of us can have dignity.
This is a true story.
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