A bong’s pujo is incomplete if he does not visit some 10-20
more pujo-mandaps, besides their own ghoroa
pujo mandap, although all seem to look the same. In out one such visit to
one such pujo-mandap we learned that this pujo had a historical value. It was
the oldest pujo in Baroda and the venue was housed in the local legendary
Maharaj’s palace premises. It was Maha Ashtami evening and such pujo evenings of bongs is not without some
koltoral anushthan. One such cultural
evening was about to begin in this venue as well and her giving the inaugural
speech was a saffron-clad man, with a saffron headgear. He spoke of youth
movement, awakening and Vivekanand in his speech. After our dorshon of Durga Maa’s idol, we were
kind of browsing through some handicraft stall in the venue. While my family
was busy in appreciating the craft and bargaining it’s price, I was
‘unimportantly’ idling nearby, when I saw the saffron swamiji getting into a
car (obviously his speech was done and
it was time for him to leave). One devoted pujo committee member who was there
to see-off swamiji, touched the feet of swamiji as he settled down on the car
seat, as on-lookers looked-on. ‘Importance’ of swamiji was not lost on anyone,
not even on swamiji! He did not even look at his reverent feet worshipper and
signalled a blessing sign with his hand in thin air. On-lookers found swamiji
even more important but the importance faded before his car tail-lights could fade
completely.
That is importance for you… Someone is ‘important’
somewhere, and whoever gets importance becomes ‘important’, yet ‘importance is
so fleeting. Yet people and organization seek it more and more, blissfully
unaware of the fleeting nature of importance. A boss who is only important in
his office, a professor who is only important in the class, a politician only
important to his servile sycophants, a chief guest who is important only at the
venue… Oh! at times this importance is sickening.
What is important to you may not be important to me and vice
versa. Similarly what is important today may not be important tomorrow. Take
the latest Linkedin survey among the Gen Y reveals that formal attire and 9 to
5 jobs will soon be a passé. LinkedIn’s
survey titled ‘Office Endangered Species’ said the top three office tools
targeted for extinction by 2017, among professionals in India were the tape
recorder, standard working hours and desktop computers. Fax machines,
Rolodexes, USB drives, cubicles and landline phones were some other items that
were set to become extinct in a few years.
Importance is not engaging; engaging is!
6 comments:
The last line says it all, Sir. Brilliant write-up, this one is.
I am tweeting (http://twitter.com/Deeptaman) this post for it to reach more people.
Thanks a million, Deep.Appreciate your comments and gesture.
Excellent write up Professor! Enjoyed every word. One of your Best Posts.
Subho Durga Puja!
Thanks, Prof. Asha for the generous appreciation. I am glad that you liked it so much.
When I wrote I never thought it would generate so much interest.
Thanks again. And Shubho Bijoya you and your family too :-)
That was something interesting to read. The significance of what is important and who is important in one's life has a different focus for individuals today based on, either their upbringing or the influence of the environment and the media.
It is also a struggle for the 'Important' ones to keep their 'importance' going,as long as it is worn as a garment over themselves....But if importance to values are the very reason for their existence, it leads to selfless service to humanity and the world in every sense.
Regards
Viola Isaac
Really interesting, learned something good....:)
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