"Atithi Devo Bhava" ........ literally meaning Guest is God
But for Bharat, no culture, no civilization ever preached such a noble virtue. Fortunately for others, they never learned nor adopted this mantra.
We were proud about this and we righteously followed this virtue without prejudice whatsoever. No matter whether the guest was a thief, robber or a murderer, we treated them with reverence. In this process, we burnt our fingers....not just fingers, but the whole of us.
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Every other day we are disturbed by the news of Indians getting beaten up somewhere in the world, be it australia, united kingdom or new zealand. Our government never seems to take any step to ensure safety of Indians abroad wherein they are subject to severe effects of racial discrimination. Instead the government is more bothered about the safety of the foreigners in India.
The government has flooded television channels with an ad wherein the fool aamir khan comes preaching the concept of 'atithi devo bhava' to Indians. The ad is so disgusting and malicious that the whole of Indians are depicted as a bunch of uncultured, illiterate barbarians without any sense of hygiene or civic sense whatsoever. It is highly disturbing to see how the money of our own people are gobbled up by the government to finally depict them in such bad frame.
I am reminded of a parable from the desert lands. Maybe they carry the story to tell us what they exactly are- An Arab and his camel, travelling at night, stop in the desert, decide to camp. Arab opens his tent, camel puts its head inside, Arab allows feeling sorry for the animal....gradually the animal worms its way inside. Knowing that he will be displaced and the tent would collapse, the animal is shown the door.
ReplyDeleteWell,parables are fine, but that is an animal and they definitely are sweet. The Arab on the other hand did not like it when his pet invaded his tent...but what exactly are the desert dwellers doing here? How do we react? Do we do what the Arab did to his progeny in our country?? Will we ever learn?