Lighthouse

Author(s): Udayvallabhvijay
Publisher: Pragna Prabodh Parivar

Page 30

depression. Very large firms who had deep roots in the industry were also affected and they were retrenching their work force in large numbers. This affected the labourers i.e. diamond polishers also and hundreds of them had to go back to their native place. Many of them had to engage themselves as coolies to ferry the belongings of pilgrims at the Palitana teerth.
When somebody from the Diamond market used to go on pilgrimage to Palitana and saw such labourer working as coolie, they used to recognize each other instantly and naturally they asked, "you, and here?" In this situation, the famous lines of a bhajan came to the mind - "Jab koi nahi aata mere Dada aate hai, Mere dukh ke dino me woh, bade kaam aate hai".
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When I was a child, I used to go for performing pooja at Shree Abhinandan Swami Derasar at Sion in Mumbai. One lady used to sit in front of the Derasar with a cow. That lady - her name was Ramabai – has been earning her livelihood for the last 35 years sitting at this one place. Have you ever seen a woman with a cow outside any restaurant or any theatre? Have you seen any paanipuriwala outside a temple? Everyone knows where a consumer would be and where a feeder would be!
It would be interesting to conduct a survey to find out how many people sitting outside the temple would be taking benefit of the footfalls in a temple. Possibly, the figure would cross lakhs. This figure is also dedicated to those who talk of social output of a temple.
Lighthouse
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