Serenades aka noise pollution

Feb 18, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- It is approaching 04:30hrs on Monday.  The edge of the dawn, the first hints at whatever the day brings.  I have company.  It is the sound of music.  I always thought that the happiest people in this country were Drs. Alistair Routledge, Irfaan Ali, Bharrat Jagdeo, Anil Nandlall, Ashni Singh, and selected others in Guyana’s political firmament.  The opposition has its joyful presences.  Not those who have crossed over.  Think of the ones who haven’t done so yet.  But really, people: music at 04:30hrs on a Monday?  Yeah, there are some Guyanese who are that happy in this country.

If this is in Georgetown City, now Old Beirut and Casablanca rolled into one, I shudder at what is happening in that arcadia called Leonora.  Reports are that the bacchanals continue unabated, with frenzied elections celebrations.  Think pre-elections 2025, and not post August 2020.  In trying to wrap my head around this national noise pollution crisis, I marvel at the iron grip that the private sector has over the PPP Government, and its top dogs, Drs. Ali and Jagdeo.  The former has abandoned his hometown roots in its (villagers) hour of need, while the latter who never knew the word class, has suddenly discovered that there is something called culture.  It is the kind of culture that only a grand old man of Guyana like B. Jagdeo could claim as his own.  He is getting up there in age, isn’t he, with glazed eyes, anxiety-ridden face, sweaty skin, hostile manner?  Now, with his kind permission, I proceed to share with him and all Guyana, culture, BJ style.

Try a revving, roaring, big bike by a hospital.  Try horns competing for first place anywhere and everywhere in Guyana, including hospitals.  Dr. Jagdeo is right: Guyanese have a culture of celebrating, and it is not after 10 at night, but what has now become nights without end, and a town without pity.  The villagers in Leonora can provide ample testimony to both, through their circumstances lived.  If I knew that owning a high-priced rum-shop commanded such power, such reach, I would have been the undisputed leader in that kind of business.  Blast at all hours and at the highest volume my Drifters and Led Zeppelin, and what’s that other one: ram a dang, ding dong to let the world know my closeness to the PPP Government (and its leaders).  The side benefits are the immunities from application of the law that I can buy.  Success with buying political protection from noise pollution tearaways, could give ideas about success with obtaining acres of prime land.  Howzat for a bona fide entrepreneurial spirit?  The Guyana (PPP Govt) way, of course.

If I can get away with nuff noise, I could get away with nuff land.  Mahaica, Santa Rosa, Leonora, and wherevah, noise nuisance is deafening, slowly killing, Guyanese.  For all intents and purposes, noise nuisance now enjoys the blessings of the PPP Government.  In the interests of democratic tolerance, I invite the Hon. Chief Lawman of Guyana, Dr. Anil Nandlall to have a say and confirm it is so.  That is, the national noise nuisance plague has been secretly approved by the PPP Government.  Or, he can castigate me for saying so.  Just don’t curse, Viscount Anil; leave that to the other two lovelies.  What else can I say when the facts are as outlined below.

Top Cop, Dr. Clifton Hicken, went to Leonora and gave solemn assurances to the residents: this confounded nonsense has to stop, and it will.  Somebody’s will have to be stronger than that of Commissioner Hicken.  The Hon. Minister of Home Affairs, Dr. Robeson Benn visited Leonora, took a looksee, met with some people, and swore on, ah, The West on Trial that noise nuisance will go down, down, down.  Seems to me that Minister Benn is the one down on the ground.  To repeat, I just have to get into this rum-shop and jukebox business.  It pays to know the right people.  I know all of them: Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall, Hicken, and Benn, and they all have a special regard for these epistles that are the equivalent of daggers in their eyes.  I thought of saying souls, but where to find was my struggle.

Noise nuisance in Guyana is not at crisis proportions anymore.  Noise nuisance, noise pollution, is like smog over New Delhi and Los Angeles.  It is beyond a dreadful calamity.  Noise pollution is a goddamn catastrophe, thanks to the PPP and its galaxy of heroic leaders.  This Guyana that now belongs to Exxon and America, lock, stock, and barrel, is now the living embodiment of Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.  All the howling banshees and wicked genies that the PPP Government’s brain trust can unleash on defenseless Guyanese have been drilled into their ears, bludgeon their minds.  From villagers to sick patients, from city residents to remote rural communities, it is this noise pollution horror story, thanks to the PPP of Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall et al.  I think I am going to get off my derriere and form a political party.  The Mission Statement is: Truth, Justice, and the Guyanese Way.  Noise pollution, corruption, land movement, oil leadership.  Alistair, ah comin fuh yu’all an dah contrak.

(Serenades aka noise pollution)

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Alistair Routledge, Anil Nandlall, Ashni Singh, Bharrat Jagdeo, hard truths, Irfaan Ali, noise pollution, Serenades

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