Garlanding the Union Leaders

You must have attended a meeting or two of bankers union or association wherein the leader is to be honoured after having won election. This is done by announcing names of comrade- members present in the meeting who turn up one by one near the stage & put garlands around the neck of elected leader. The Q of comrades is usually long-one so garlands keep piling on the leader’s neck till he is unable to look left or right. But then my elected leader does not want to look left or right but straight ahead to next election or next post.

I checked up the dictionary which says that a garland is a decorative wreath or cord, used at festive occasion, which can be hung around a person’s neck, or on inanimate objects like statues.

Further research reveals that in French garland is known as ‘guirlande’, in Italian ‘ghirlanda’ in Hindi it is ‘mala’ in Tamil ‘poo maalai’ & in Kannada ‘hoovina maale’ etc.

These garlands are made of flowers & mostly from fragrant flowers like rose, marigold, champa, jasmine etc. Certain leaves like mango tree leaves etc are also used. Then there are larger garlands like Jaimala or Varmala used by couples in weddings. In weddings you may also find garlands of currency notes which by the way needs attention of RBI as well.

If elected I would rather prefer garland with currency notes as is done by some politicians. That’s a consolation prize if not lottery. 

Garlands also serve at the time of death & on the photo of the dead. I can’t visualise how would I feel when they hang garland on my photo on some point of time later.

Meantime union leaders continue to be garlanded. I feel that if any of us becomes a leader after winning election he does not become taller & still remains a comrade. By garlanding the elected leader what are we doing to him & what are we doing to ourselves? Perhaps making him sit on our heads as a ruler! He was equal to us & now after winning election he is more equal than us!

Here I quote my fb friend Ashok Jeet:

Garlanding the union leaders!

‘तू छू रहा,
गर किसी उंचाई को
अपने, गुरुर से बाहर आ
के खुदा भी कभी-कभी
आ जाता है,                                                        

जमीं पर
वो देख यहाँ जितने भी
दरख़्त हैं जो लदे हैं फलों से
सब झुके हुए हैं
जो अकड़ के खड़े हैं
उनका हश्र तूफानों के बाद
जमीन बता देती है’