The world of loudspeakers
By: K S S Pillai
Recently, I came across a pamphlet announcing a public meeting in 1956, stating in bold letters that loudspeakers would be used in the meeting. The organisers were expecting more people to attend the meeting to hear the amplified voice of the speakers through the novel device.
I remember the early days of loudspeakers in my town. They were large and cone-shaped. There used to be a shop that offered the services of providing loudspeakers at public functions. The shop owner himself would go to the place with the equipment and handle everything, making people look at him with awe.
Before the beginning of the function, he would play records of filmy songs by using a gramophone. A flat, round record of the song would rotate while a tiny needle moved along its grooves. There would be a removable handle, which would be rotated by hand at intervals to wind up the gramophone.
There was a cinema house with a thatched roof in the town. Whenever the film changed, the fact would be announced in the catchment areas in a bullock cart. An announcer, sitting inside, would announce the change of film through loudspeakers placed on top of the cart.
At intervals, songs of the new movie would be aired, and pamphlets with photographs of stars in action and a summary of the story, suddenly broken off at the climax asking the readers to see ‘the rest on the silver screen’ would be distributed to patrons following the cart.
Speakers at public meetings, conscious of the microphone before them, would concentrate their attention on it by continuing to look at it instead of the audience. The volume was kept at maximum to create a festive atmosphere and to carry the voice to far-flung areas. Most of the audience would try to sit near the mounted loudspeakers.
Some people would refuse to attend functions as speakers if there were no loudspeakers. Over time, it has become an essential part of all public meetings, and loudspeakers of various sizes and shapes have emerged.
Cordless speakers were used later as the old ones with dangling cords had sometimes caused the speakers to get entangled, resulting in unsavoury incidents. I have seen some politicians correcting the position of microphones in front of less experienced ones. Some speakers take time to adjust the mikes before starting their speech and knocking at them to see that they are functional. Occasionally, loudspeakers go silent while the speaker is delivering his heated speech, embarrassing the organisers. Mechanics now sit near the spot to handle such incidents instantly.
News readers and anchors in television shows have small microphones clipped to their upper garments so that their voices would be heard clearly. Participants in television programmes are seen wearing headgear with speakers in front of their mouths, leaving their hands free. Even in smaller indoor meetings, it has become customary to place a mike on the table in front of each speaker.
Loudspeakers have become inevitable during marriage functions. Loud music systems that need no amplifying have been using loudspeakers while passing through roads, halting every few metres ‘for the benefit of people nearby’ even at night, waking them up rudely.
In private religious ceremonies, priests chanting Sanskrit stanzas insist on loudspeakers so that their voices would reach the maximum number of people in the neighbourhood. It is another matter that neither those organising such functions nor the neighbours understand the meaning of such chants.
The device is now being considered a nuisance that causes noise pollution, particularly during festivals. Communal tension has been caused and cases filed in courts of law citing the violation of the fundamental rights of citizens.
Some state governments have banned loudspeakers in certain areas, while some have restricted their volume and timing. Those using loudspeakers show scant respect even to silence zones like hospitals. The users are required to get written permission from proper authorities for the use of loudspeakers. Though there is a time limit for their use, it is seldom followed, and the authorities often turn a blind eye to such violations.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have been published by various national and international publications)
KV News
