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Shiv sena supremo Balasaheb Thakaray is no more. Sunday 18 November, 2012 hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Shivaji Park to see a glimpse of their God as he was taken in procession from his house Matoshree in Bandra East to Shivaji Park. A distance of less than 6km that took whole day for the procession. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the route.
The original plan was to bring him at Shivaji Park by 10AM and allow people to pay their respect and have Darshan till 5PM. But it took whole day to reach Shivaji Park. After they reached Shivaji Park around 4:30PM, lot of time spent in arranging VIPs to sit at the podium and then pay their respect to the leader.
Unfortunately, this left no time for the common people - those very ground level sainiks who revered their leader next to God - to have last glimpse of their God. It pained me to see those various party leaders to wield their VVIP status and come to the venue at the last moment and still be on that stage and the common people who made Balasaheb god had to scramble around and yet not be able to see their God.
Many of the VVIPs like Chhahan Bhujbal, Sanjay Nirupam had earlier publicly expressed not so flattering words on political dais about this great people's leader. And yet by virtue of their VVIP status they get place on that stage. People like Amitabh Bacchan and other celebrities who by virtue of their VVIP status had easy access in Balasaheb's last few days of illness. And yet those people who revered him had to struggle in vain.
I wonder what Balasaheb would have thought about this irony.
I guess when we are alive we can select the people to speak to, to be friends with, to criticize. But after death we cannot control who visits our last rites and keeps flower on our body.
Death such cruel thing!
The original plan was to bring him at Shivaji Park by 10AM and allow people to pay their respect and have Darshan till 5PM. But it took whole day to reach Shivaji Park. After they reached Shivaji Park around 4:30PM, lot of time spent in arranging VIPs to sit at the podium and then pay their respect to the leader.
Unfortunately, this left no time for the common people - those very ground level sainiks who revered their leader next to God - to have last glimpse of their God. It pained me to see those various party leaders to wield their VVIP status and come to the venue at the last moment and still be on that stage and the common people who made Balasaheb god had to scramble around and yet not be able to see their God.
Many of the VVIPs like Chhahan Bhujbal, Sanjay Nirupam had earlier publicly expressed not so flattering words on political dais about this great people's leader. And yet by virtue of their VVIP status they get place on that stage. People like Amitabh Bacchan and other celebrities who by virtue of their VVIP status had easy access in Balasaheb's last few days of illness. And yet those people who revered him had to struggle in vain.
I wonder what Balasaheb would have thought about this irony.
I guess when we are alive we can select the people to speak to, to be friends with, to criticize. But after death we cannot control who visits our last rites and keeps flower on our body.
Death such cruel thing!
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