When Vasu Dixit used music to teach a lesson in traffic sense 

BENGALURU: On Wednesday, some motorists on Marenahalli Road in JP Nagar saw an unusual sight. A man, while strumming a guitar and singing a Kannada song, was blocking two-wheelers driving on the footpath by plonking himself in front of them. If anyone else had done the same thing, the motorists would have lost their cool and perhaps tell the person to mind his/her own business. But this man’s demeanour, coupled with the guitar in his hand, somehow made the motorists conscious of their mistake and brought a sheepish smile to their faces.

A few two-wheeler riders stopped, smiled, but went on. Finally, one rider, either out of curiosity or because he found his way completely blocked, stopped to listen to what the guitar-player had to say. The singer simply asked him to go back to the road. The rider then retreated to the road. The beaming singer turned to the camera and said, “So if you try, out of five people one person will change.

That’s what music can do.” This was not the first time well-known musician and member of the folk/fusion band Swarathma Vasu Dixit utilised music to convey a message to people, and by his own admission, it won’t be the last either. However, this time, his act was completely spontaneous. “I was visiting a music store to get my guitar serviced, and while I was walking many two-wheelers were riding on the footpath. Every time the signal turned red, they would do the same thing because the Metro work going on has made the road narrow. So I borrowed a guitar from the same store and decided to do this,” he told The New Indian Express.

Explaining why the people did not show the expected reaction of anger, Dixit says when people are told something in an entertaining and funny way, they will want to believe the person. “If I had done this without a guitar, people would have told me it wasn’t any of my business, even if they were in the wrong. That is the power of music, it can send the message across in a way that does not hurt others,” he said.
Dixit is working on other such ideas wherein he can convey a message to the public through his music, including a song for CfB’s Beku Beda campaign.

He recognises that he cannot do the police’s work, but hopes to draw their attention to the issue.
Asked why motorists, even educated ones, rode on footpaths, Dixit said their education was not reflecting in their behaviour.

Vasu attributes a lot of importance to footpaths. “As per a study, the average health of a society is proportional to the pedestrian area of that place. If vehicles also come on to footpaths then how will people walk? Already there are so many things there – shops, construction material etc.”