Lighthouse

Author(s): Udayvallabhvijay
Publisher: Pragna Prabodh Parivar

Page 46

Human being is a sensitive creature. He understands feelings and he expresses feelings. He expresses his feelings by personally meeting another person or getting in touch with such person by means of communication or sometimes only by remembering such person.
If one wants to express his feelings - good or bad, towards anyone and suppose that person is not physically present before him, reliance is placed on the picture, statue or any other thing which represents such person.
Why do we garland the photographs of our departed parents and other elders? Why do we bow before the photographs?
#
Why do we pin up our favourite cricketer's photograph /poster on our bed-room wall?
Why do pictures of Gandhiji or Shahid Bhagat Singh or Subhash Chandra Bose or Nehruji are kept in Courts or other government offices or schools etc.? Why do we install the statues of such heroes at various places?
Why do we burn the effigy of Ravana on Dassera Day?
A few years ago somebody had put a garland of chappals on the statue of Baba Saheb Ambedkar somewhere in Suburban Mumbai. As a result, there were riots and there was `Mumbai Bandh'. What is the strength of a statue? Two chappals leading to Mumbai Bandh-so much is the strength! If desecration of the statue of a worldly human being can erupt into such a chaos, why can the pooja of a supernatural teerthankar's deity not result in some very special blessing.
It is true that nobody offers grass to a statue of cow or nobody milks such cow. However, a person dedicated to the cow will bow against even a statue of a cow. A person
Lighthouse
37