Big Celebrations - dirty & unnecessary

The silver jubilee celebration of Art of Living was a huge affair. I asked my friends, “from where do you think they got all the money for that” & somebody said the Art of Living Foundation has it. Despite the answer, for some reason I couldn’t & still cant comprehend the logic or the reason behind a show of that sort. What were we celebrating really? Ok its 25 years old. So what?

I’ am not against the idea of celebrating the silver jubilee, the only question I’ am asking is why should it be so huge. Why should so much money be spent on it? Why couldn’t they have scaled it down to a simple function where may be a thousand odd people gathered at one place at one time & then continued with the celebrations across many days at their center in Bangalore?

I suppose irrespective of what one’s job is, there comes a time when he wants to sit back & enjoy all the praise & adulation thrown at him. Can we say the same about the Art of Living? Were they also just sitting back & enjoying all the appreciation they were getting for the good work they have done? Can they actually afford to do that? Should they do that? Shouldn’t they have put that money for better, useful purposes? The Art of Living anyway indulges in a lot of developmental activity, which is greatly appreciated, may be they should have just continued with that.

This was like a celebration of doing good. At least those who are involved in the process of doing good shouldn’t resort to such show of pomp. Imagine a case where every NGO that exists starts to throw big bashes when they complete 25 years. Incomprehensible, isn’t it? To me the Art of Living silver jubilee celebration was like that. Unnecessary and a waste.

Such huge celebrations should be banned in India. These are fruitless exercises leading to only cost & nothing else. I tried to figure out the cost of this celebration & didn’t get any information on it. May be it ran into a few crores, we’ll never know.