Monday mornings are not usually very pleasant and in my case, it gets a little too gloomy because I live almost light-years away from my office. To even reach minutely on time, I have to start at least two hours before my reporting time and trust me that’s not a very pleasant thing to happen to someone.

But why it has to be made more unpleasant? At least that is what I thought this Monday morning when I made my first call, in a hurry, to my Uber cab driver using my Vodafone number. Instead of the phone ringing on the other end, I heard someone coughing. Once. And then again. And then a message started playing about Coronavirus infections that are fast spreading, causing COVID19 disease across the world. Annoying!

What's going on? If you haven't noticed yet, the default ringtone in India has been changed to a message about Coronavirus that is causing infection across the world. The message aims to tell people, almost all of us who use Jio, Vodafone, Airtel or SIM card from any other telecom company -- BSNL and MTNL included -- that Coronovirus is spreading and that it is important to take precautionary measures like washing hands with a soap to check its spread.

Here is what is going on:

-- Sometime last week the government told telecom companies like Jio, Airtel, Vodafone and others to change the default ringtone.

-- Now, everyone, whenever they make a call, is first going to listen to the Coronavirus message that government has prepared.

-- What is this message? Here is what Airtel, Jio, Vodafone, BSNL and others are telling their users: As per the Govt. directive, you may hear a pre-call announcement on Coronavirus when you make an outgoing call. This may delay your call connect by a few seconds.

-- Currently, it is not clear for how long the person coughing in your ear is going to be the default ringtone. Chances are that it is going to stay here, at least until there is a risk of Coronavirus infections spreading in India. Currently, the country has 43 positive cases of COVID19.

I can understand that the government and telecom companies have the right intentions with this move. Yet, I can't help but say this is incredibly annoying, and not just to me. A look at Facebook and Twitter show that no one apparently likes to hear someone coughing in their ears. It is almost like the Chinese government move where the country used drones to locate people walking out of the home without a mask and then chided them like they were 5-year-old kids in a schoolroom.

So, coming back to my morning saga, I dragged myself out of the bed in the wee hours, guzzled a cup of ginger tea and rushed out of my home. Meanwhile, I started looking for Uber cabs around me. When I finally found one, I tried calling the driver to explain my address better but what happened next deeply astounded me.

Instead of the usual ring or the caller tune, I heard someone coughing on the other side. Completely unaware of what the actual scenario is, I for a second assumed that it’s my driver coughing. However, just when I thought I should stick to my first guess, a computerized female voice gave some valuable instructions about how to prevent coronavirus from spreading and what all measures one should take. The suggestions, needless to say, were very important and to some extent useful. However, my mind toiled back to the coughing noise, which I would still maintain was not a very pleasant sound to hear early in the morning.

While I completely laud the well-thought-of decision by the government of India, I have my doubts regarding the way it was carried out. The first thing that they could have done is to replace the annoying coughing sound with something rather melodious. Maybe a sound similar to a gong or a normal doorbell. Basically, anything would have sufficed but the sound of a man coughing his lungs out. When you see or hear someone coughing uncontrollably, you feel very sorry for the person and you also feel helpless at the same time. You immediately want to run towards them with a glass of water or in some cases may be a logenze for some instant relief. But in this case, you just get to hear the sound and do nothing.

I would try and avoid calling anybody as long as the campaign goes on because I somehow don’t want to end up feeling sick every time I call someone. Having said that, I think the initiative would to some extent help people who don’t have much access to the internet or television sets because by listening to the voiceover they would at least be aware of the disease and its impending danger. They will also take necessary precautions about the same.

In my case and many others like me, things would have turned out perfectly fine if the coughing sound would have been replaced with something more soothing to the ears, if not music. After all, if it is just about the message why not play that with some decent music or tone instead of the coughing sound.