The people of the town, after having decided to conduct a consecration ritual for the temple, constituted a committee with nine members and entrusted it with the task of mobilizing the funds, by seeking donations.
The committee members decided to first visit Kasi, a prominent and wealthy person in the town, known for his philanthropic nature. The encouraging words spoken by him, immediately after hearing the proposal, naturally enthused the members.
After briefly apprising Kasi of the plan, Murthy looked at Ramaswamy. On receiving his signal, he told Kasi, "Sir! We will take leave."
He then took out a notebook from his bag, showed it to Kasi and said, "Sir! We bought a new notebook, got it placed before the idol of the Lord in the temple and brought it with us. Please write your name as the first donor and the amount you will be donating."
Kasi did not extend his hand to receive the notebook from Murthy. He told him, "I will enter my name later. I am not particular that my name should be on the top. Collect donations from other people. I will give my contribution after some time."
"No, sir. We want your name to be on the top. You can pay the money later. Please write your name and..."
Kasi interrupted Murthy, by waving his hand. "I don't know how good the harvest is going to be this year. I have to consider such factors before making a commitment. You may come to me later."
He stood up and went inside, signaling that they should leave.
A perplexed Murthy got up from his seat. Others followed suit and all of them walked out of Kasi's house.
After coming out of Kasi's house, Murthy told Ramaswamy, "He was so enthusiastic at the beginning. I don't understand why he changed his mind within minutes."
Ramaswamy told the other members, "You may go home now. We will meet at Murthy's house at 5 o' clock in the evening and discuss our further course of action."
After the others had left, Ramaswamy told Murthy, "Let us talk while we walk."
After walking a few steps, Ramaswamy told Murthy, "We two were sitting in the first row. The other seven were sitting behind us in two rows. You couldn't have noticed what some of them were doing."
"I thought they were sitting idle" said Murthy.
"If they had been sitting idle, things would have gone well. Kasi would have given us a substantial sum as his contribution!"
"What do you mean?"
"Subbu and Mani, sitting in the third row, were chatting with each other and giggling. Guna and Karunakaran sitting in the second row looked back at them, with concern. I thought of asking Subbu and Mani to be silent. But, realizing that doing so would have made it glaring, I kept quiet. Since you were engaged in conversing with Kasi, you didn't notice it. But Kasi noticed it."
"Oh! As you had said, I didn't notice it. But, was it such a grave offense making Kasi feel annoyed?" asked Murthy.
"We should be very careful in the presence of the elderly, the powerful, the rich and the elite. These people are highly sensitive. They expect others to be polite, humble and calm in their presence. Kasi should have felt offended by the two men in our group chatting and giggling and considered heir behaviour disrespectful. That was why he retracted from his decision to give us a donation. You and I should meet him after a couple of days and apologize to him about the behaviour of the two members of our group. I hope that he would be pacified, if we do so. While talking to our group members this evening, let us exhort them to behave appropriately, while meeting other people. We will pull up Subbu and Mani privately and make them realize how their inappropriate behaviour has hurt our mission" said Ramaswamy.
Section 2
Getting Close to the Ruler
sevich chollum sErndha nagaiyum aviththu ozhugal
AnRa periyAr agaththu.
No comments:
Post a Comment