Friday, April 12, 2013

13. Gudhipadava Special Article - Novel Political Experiment!



Note: This is translation of my previous post. Original Marathi post can be found here: http://sumedhdhabu.blogspot.sg/2013/04/12.html. I did it because some of my non-Marathi friends requested the translated version and many of my Marathi friends can’t read long articles in Devnagari. I have put the Marathi words in italics. I don’t know how to translate them! I have tried to convey the meaning wherever possible. I have tried to translate, hope this attempt is successful and conveys the meaning and intentions properly.

Shalivahan Shake 1935
Shuddha Pratipada
Gudhipadava

Wish you all a very Happy New Year! :-)

You all must have celebrated the Padava with ‘shreekhand-puri’ and other traditional dishes. Being away from home, I missed my regular program of helping mom in preparations for shreekhand and kadunimb chatani. Today (Thursday) evening I, along with my friends Sumit, Rohit and Akshay, went to ‘Shree Laxminarayan Temple’ in Little India. Before that I purchased shreekhand and rajgira vadi in Datar’s famous shop ‘Peshwai’. Then we went to a new hotel ‘Mumbai 2 Goa’, which had this offer of shreekhand-puri as complementary dish on every meal. So had shreekhand-puri on the occasion of Padava. :-) The hotel is ok ok – not many options for vegetarian people but the menu looks real good for seafood lovers.

Note to all relatives and friends in Pune: when you will visit Grahak Peth on the occasion of Ramnavami, take panhe and sunthavada on my behalf too! :-)

Now I will come to the main topic of this post.

I was actually not sure of what to write today, as all the stories of why to celebrate Padava and other related stories will already be there in newspapers. All those stereotype columns will have been published in every newspaper. All these articles regarding festivals and traditions are becoming like the ‘dekhave’ or decoration and plays during the Ganapati Festival (dekhava is a short theatrical play created with statues and is supposed to be source of entertainment, sometimes addressing the current situations or historical events). This mandal’s (group’s) dekhava can be seen at some other mandal next year and that mandal’s dekhava is put at some other mandal (of course some mandal’s are exception, e.g. Gavalivada mandal). Similar to this, recently it has been observed that the same articles with the same contents are being published in various newspapers with very minor changes. All the editors discuss the current affairs (of course the ones which won’t be politically unsuitable for their owners) and in almost every article one can notice the sentence ‘we all should come together and take initiative regarding - -’ (put some virtues and current affairs here).

We have this great tradition of ‘bomb marane’ (officially speaking ill words on the day of holi). This tradition has been incorporated in our great culture by our great ancestors to allow the otherwise civilized and good mannered people to have the ‘special drinks’ and then speak the way they want to without anyone judging them! Of course our - - political leaders do not fit this group (insert the adjectives honorable etc. etc. in place of - -). One (self-proclaimed ‘tagya’ - goon) political leader recently vomited some unspeakable words about drought affected people. This may be because his hangover from the day of holi is not over yet! The political history of Maharashtra has seen so many speeches with loads of censored contents of such bad levels (interested people can check the speeches of one of the late Marathi actors – the real Dada and a recently deceased great political leader – of course use headphones! These will be available on YouTube) that this specific speech was just the plain speech compared to them. But still the intention was so wrong. How you dare to mock the drought-affected people who expect some help from you (not because you are great or something but simply because you are in power and in position to help)? There is no water in dams, these political leaders say. How is it possible that there is no water only when it is required for farming and household purposes? Water is available for all other purposes – IPL, holi, constructions and palaces of rich and eminent people, wineries and other water exhaustive factories and activities of political leaders! We must ask these questions! What happened to all those multimillion projects for water harvesting? They are trying to suppress their wrongdoings and mismanagement with this issue (reference:  http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/maharashtra-drought-manmade-analysis/article4577079.ece). There had been a multimillion project for artificial rains few years back. What happened afterwards? Of course the newspaper and TV channel people won’t say anything about this, because of the political and monetary relations of their owners!

Another main point is current MP of Pune! He has spent more time in courts and jail than he spent in his constitution! We should show such people their real place. The parliament elections will be held within a year now and we all should take them down from power. Whether the current MP will get another chance or not is not fixed yet. The ‘clock people’ might also push forward their candidate, but we should unite against them. The ‘clock’ is now dysfunctional and must be replaced! Other political parties are also not good but they are at least less bad.   

But what more can one say about the politicians! These people generally have their followers (goons), so one must be beware of them. The article by one of my friends describes the situation I described in the last two lines (Ameya Sawadkar: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ameya-sawadkar/of-saving-money-for-things-essential-for-living/10151340163946835).  

Being a true Punekar, it is my duty to give you all some advice after all this talk against these people. I have already written some articles which will give you some good laughs. Also in my second post I wrote a poem about historic person. But this time I want to advice you all and make an emotional call for the betterment of Pune!

So am telling you all what has been in mind for more than a year. According to me, currently there is only one person in Pune who can be a true leader and represent Pune. But it seems that he has taken voluntary retirement from politics. Some people might not approve of him because of his past unsuccessful affiliations with some political parties, but this person has very good experience of actual governance and he also had contested for MP elections as an independent candidate. He has written 'Aswastha Dashakachi Diary' and really cares for the society. I think there is no need to tell his name, his qualifications speak for him! Great orator; well educated; very famous and popular in youth he is! We need such a leader! If the people in Pune take initiative and do something, we may be able to change his mind. It is the need of time to end the tyranny of the current dada’s and bhai’s and have our own candidate for elections!  I am sure that many NGOs and other organizations will be ready to back him as he is the person with very good reputation. The common man and especially youth will surely support him. I will write a separate article about this sometime.

It is my wish that well educated, same minded, good people from Pune should come together and do something about this. We all rant about the current political situation on internet or privately, but now is the time for action! There are many non-political organizations in Pune. As a Punekar, I wish that all of them should come together, discard their agenda of remaining non-political and take initiative for betterment of Pune. Our Pune has always been the center for all the historical political activities and I wish that this time we should try this novel experiment for the upcoming elections and should be the pioneers of new revolution!


I expect all of you to think about this and spread these thoughts as much as possible!

Note: all the thoughts expressed here are personal and if similar thinking people come together and undertake something, I will be very glad.
-           
Sumedh Dhabu

रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
ब्रह्मराजर्षिरत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥

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