Cityblog Live

CityBlog is back with all fresh local news, views, opinions, jobs, food and entertainment. Do send us your blog contributions to us for publishing at cityblogpuneonline@gmail.com

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Ladies taking the front seats


Men might disagree to this but ladies are very well manager. Kubera Gulshan has been witnessing for the last three years. A society of about 113 families, out which 10% are tenants, has been celebrating Ganesha festival for the last 10 years but it’s only three years, they make a separate committee for the Ganesha festival only which gets dissolve after the function.
Talking about the need of a separate committee for this festival, Vinaya Vaidya, treasurer, says, “The main committee is having more of male members. They are busy in their work so much that they fail to pay attention to this side. So we decided to have a separate committee who will look after the festival and will get dissolved after the work is done. It’s been our third year of this activity”. This committee has ladies taking the front seat and looking after the management of the festival.

Harini Babani, a committee member, says, “This is the only time when every family from society come together and celebrates it like a family. So to have it in a better way, this was the best idea. We can have all the activities planned in such a way that every age group can enjoy”. First year, they had games only for kids; then got an addition of ladies in the second year and this year, they had games for senior citizens too. Explaining this, Preetie Patwardhan, another committee member, says, “Having senior people sitting as an audience and clapping was something that we didn’t want. So this time, we kept few activities for them too and interestingly, have got good response”. They had games like 1 minute games and mind games for them.
One more interesting thing that they did was making Prasad at home. “We allotted buildings to make Prasad and even some food so that people can enjoy. Ladies made them irrespective of their cast and region. This is something which helped them to build relations in a better way”, adds Harini. The funds are being collected differently for this festival, but without forcing anyone to pay. Apart from different games they happen to arrange Sunil Godbole, a whistler, who presents songs, for one day. “It was fun and people enjoyed. Before the show we were quite nervous on how people will take it but when we got the positive response, we were happy”, says Sheetal Kabbe, a committee member.
They had an eco-friendly Ganesha. Participation of the families are increasing the year is passing. They improve every year to have more games so that people can come together and enjoy as family. This time, it was only the ladies handling the show as they also had a lady pandit to come and do puja in the morning and evening, regularly for the 5 days. The committee dissolves every year after presenting the Balance Sheet to form again next year.

No comments:

Post a Comment