Recently, it was time for annual festival of Jagannath Rathyatra in India. Ahmedabad too had a Rathyatra. In the Rathyatra festival, a chariot carrying Lord Jagannath is toured around the city. It is said that God comes to see his/her devotees on this perticular day. It was a great feeling to be a part of this festival. One sees happy, dancing people all around. With the lords chariot come many other shows such as bodybuilders, bamboo fighters, drummers etc. Other than this one can see a bevy of people running around to organize everything from water, food to crowd control.
Yesterday, I found myself deep into this spectacle after a long pause of 12 year. Among many delightful things, I noticed how organized this event was. There were supposedly more than 20000 people on the narrow streets of Ahmedabad. But there was a feeling of resposbility shared by people all around me. They were contributing in their capacity for the success of this event and having fun at the same time. It was as if there was an invisble force moving them towards service. I wondered then why we do not have the same sense of duty towards our nation or myraid other things such as environment or water management or our parents.
I feel service to an unknown force which is considered beneficial is more convincing than something which is not as mysterious.
Nation as a concept seems to be abstract or hard to grasp. Its benefits are yet not clear to Indian society. Nation has mystery but it is not perceived to have power over destiny of people. And so people ignore it.
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