Where dahi handi mandals are used to inviting Bollywood celebrities for Gokulashtami (birth anniversary of Lord Krishna) programme to attract crowds, the Vande Mataram Sanghatana has been organising dahi handi programmes that send out social messages.
This year, it has decided to organise an anti-superstition Book Handi to pay tributes to the late anti-superstition crusader Dr Narendra Dabholkar.
Under this theme, the Sanghatana will put books and other materials used as mark of superstitions, in the handi that is to be broken, instead of dahi. The booklets inside the handi will then be distributed among the students, symbolising the awareness about education and the folly of superstitions.
The Vande Mataram Sanghatana, the membership of which is mostly college students, started using the concept of Book Handi five years ago. Book Handi was first organised by the Akara Maruti Chowk’s Ganesh Mandal, which was then followed by the Sanghatana.
The programe will be organised at Sir Parshurambhau College (SP College) on August 28, a day before Gokulashtami, so that other Mandals also can participate. Sachin Jamage, executive president of the organisation informed that the Sanghatana has 350 books ready for the inmates of Mamata Foundation, which runs a centre for the HIV +ve children. “These children are going to break the Handi this year,” he said.
Jamage said that the Sanghatana would donate these 350 books along with donations from well-wishers in the form of clothes, books and toys to these children. He said five years ago the organisation had created a huge wall of books to spread the message against sound pollution.
It is the same Vande Mataram Sanghatana which, soon after the medal haul by sportspersons Gagan Narang, Mary Kom, Sushilkumar, Vijender Singh, had organised a Pustak Handi to propagate sports culture. It had then displayed posters of these medal winners on Pustak Handi. Similarly, when anti-corruption movement by social worker Anna Hazare was at its peak, they organised Pustak Handi to spread the “Mi Anna, Tu Anna” message, distributed masks to small children and displayed Anna Hazare’s posters and related messages.
About Akara Maruti
Akara Maruti Chowk Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal started celebrating Dahi Handi as Book Handis. This year the Book Handi at Akara Maruti Chowk would be broken by the inmates of blind girls’ school at Kothrud on August 29 at 8 pm. The Mandal is organizing Book Handi for last 8 years and this is ninth year, informed Vinayak Ghate, the Executive president of the Mandal. Seva Mitra Mandal also would organize Book Handi on August 29 and it would be broken by local children. Golden Group at Anand Nagar Sinhgad Road would also organize Book Handi on Thursday (August 29).
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