Music is said to bring the world together, but today due to an ill imposed and unthought-out rule which is associating all music and all venues who play live music to dance bars and rising crime rates, venues across the city have been forced to turn off the sound.

This is affecting - artists, venues, vendors, and staff members - all who make their living and support families through this. If this goes on, we also lose the charm and liveliness of what the city is known for.

The authorities claim that this has been imposed for the safety and security of the people, which is myopic and naive at best. Cutting down dance bars and ensuring public spaces conform to necessary rules of safety and ordinance is obviously a good thing and needs to be implemented but an ad-hoc, knee-jerk reaction resulting in a blanket ban of music takes us back to the days of witch hunts. Previously, noted writer and artiste, Girish Karnad publicly made a statement on this issue, "How can the police say that listening to music in a club and having a drink lead to crime. This has nothing to do with a live band.