One of my friend shailesh send me his view about Lalbaugcha Raja during Ganesh Festival :-) Proud to be a Lalbaugcha Raja’s Volunteer … For last few days, there is a News in every TV Channel, Press Media, Social Media about the misbehavior of a Volunteer of the Lalbaugcha Raja. I, being a resident of the locality and also being a Volunteer of the Lalbaugcha Raja Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal, would like to throw some light on the other side of the matter. It is really foolishness to ask anyone whether the behaviour of the volunteer shown in the clip/s is correct or not, without taking into account the other facts. It is like asking 3-4 line answer of a question in a single word. If killing of a person is a wrong thing, can you tell me, whether killing of Afzal Khan by Shivaji Maharaj was “Right” or “Wrong”? To start with, we have to take into account some facts about the arrangements made by the Mandal for the Ganeshotsav In terms of the number of devotees, Lalbaugcha Raja is normally compared with the Siddhivinayak Mandir of Mumbai, Sai Baba Mandir of Shirdi and Dagdusheth Ganpati of Pune. It should be noted that devotees can visit these other temples at any time during the year whereas Lalbaugcha Raja Utsav is only for 10 days. Hence, there is no permanent structure for the Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh Utsav. You must be aware that there are two types of queues for taking darshan of the Lalbaugcha Raja. The first one is the Mukh-darshan queue and the other one is the Navas (Vow) queue. Even though the second type was meant for devotees who want to make/fulfill the Navas (Vow), but all those who wish to touch the feet of the Lalbaugcha Raja stand in this queue. Generally, the time taken for the Mukh darshan queue is less compared to the time taken by the Navas queue. Apart from these, there is one more queue meant for the persons related to the Mandal or the Guest queue. These guest include employees of the different Hospitals, different Government Departments, Educational Institutions and also residents of the nearby buildings. These persons help the Mandal through-out the year for carrying out its social activities. Hence, it’s the duty of the Mandal to pay respect to them, in return. As you can guess, the time taken for the darshan by the devotees standing in this guest queue is very less compared to the time taken through Navas queue. Devotees who are not ready to spend time in Navas queue but want to touch the feet of the bappa, try to sneak-in this queue, by force. Sometimes you will find hundreds of such sneakers/intruders in this guest queue. Upto last year, the Navas queue was getting affected because of this guest queue. This year, our Mandal had changed the arrangements by putting a partition on the stage in such a way that the Navas queue will not get affected because of the gest queue. All the TV channels are showing the clip of a Volunteer taking out the devotees who have come to touch bappa’s right foot but no one has mentioned that he is taking out the devotees of the queue which contains few of the Mandal’s guest and hundreds of intruders. If you will notice in the same footage, you will notice that the devotees coming in the Navas queue on bappa’s left foot are not pulled out so hurriedly. Mandal always give preference to those devotees who stand for hours in the queue. This change in the arrangement has also reduced the time taken by the Navas queue from 15-20 hours to 8-10 hours. In fact, during this Ganeshotsav, many a times it was taking less than 4-5 hours. Nobody has highlighted these facts which are definitely positive for the true devotees of the Lalbaugcha Raja. If we talk about the behaviour of the volunteer near the foot of the bappa, I agree that it was indecent. But if there is huge crowd of intruders in the VIP queue, we have to take out large number of devotees from the front side, as quickly as possible to avoid any disaster in the VIP queue. Since the area available for the VIP queue is small, there can be danger of stampede or suffocation to small kids, elderly persons and even pregnant women. The same may be the case when the volunteer was pulling out the devotees, in the clip. Even though the volunteer was pulling the devotees in indecent manner, his intention was not bad. Hence, it is my humble request to you that please, do not get mislead by the partially told stories and also take the darshan of the Lalbaugcha Raja in proper queues to help us to avoid such incidences. Shailesh Bhujbal Email ID : bhujbal@gmail Contact No. : 9869056665
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:52:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015