We, as a Nation, appear to have a tradition of erecting statues of Social, Political, Economic, etc. importance at every nuke and cranny, all over.
I call this propensity towards Statue-Erection as an irreverent act, as 99% of all the statues, ever, erected in India are mostly left to the neglect for at least 361 days of any regular year. During these days, these statues would look unbearably ugly with the bird-droppings, dust and dirt, covering them all over. Of the above 361 days you can, however, discount the rainy-days when the nature cleans these Statues, for us. The four days when they are cleaned & washed are on, 1) the Republic Day, 2) Independence Day, 3) the Birth Day (Jayanti) and 4) the Death-Day (Vardhanti) of the respected personality of the statute. Early in the Morning on those days, mysteriously, they look spick-and-span. It was as if there was an overnight rain that drenched off its grime of the previous many months.
And the next you can expect is a series of processions of politicos, with their minions in toe, shouting Jai, Jai to their Netaji and once, in a while, JaiJaiing the poor personality whose statue they are going to grace with their netaji’s presence, for the occasion, accompanied by their photographers or, sometimes, even the local media (in case of VIPs), covering the ritual of Garlanding and Rigmaroles of the Netajis, before they all leave only to remember the location of the stature on the next occasion as listed above.
Sometimes, you could see some fun, without tickets, when two or more such processions belonging to rival factions or parties reaching the same statue at the same time and as well demanding that they should have the honor of garlanding – what with the fisticuffs and the free-for-all – which you can even catch on the telly.
Not that every statue, ever, erected gets the same public attention as some statues do get. It is like the value of real-estate, depends on the location. In case of statues, however, the location apart the position in the overall hierarchy of the statues, the age of the personality of statue, whether the personality is still in the memories of the populations or whether s/he has been resurrected by some agitation or some turn of events of the recent history or most of the times by some rabble-rousers and so far and so forth.
The only purpose for us to erect statues of the so-called revered personalities is for the above requirement, why do we waste so much public money on such meaningless statues of whom most of the walker-bys wouldn’t care at all? Why don’t we use the disposable statues on expendable pedestals or even better from the rental service?? Is the statue more important than what those great personalities have taught us???
