During the recent Ganesh festival I happened to visit one of the pandals which was set up by one of my subordinates. And that day changed my perspective about people from lower strata of the society.

If you see the photograph of the idol it is very difficult to make out its uniqueness. I was fortunate and blessed enough to have a closer look at the idol and I was left speechless. The idol was made entirely of old newspaper and rope! Even the decorations around the idol were of paper and card board.

But what astonished me the most is the fact that this idol is the brainchild of a carpenter working in my office! His name is vilas. He is not very well educated. In fact I'm ashamed to say that just last year when he was going through bad phase in his personal life, I wrote him off as a weak minded person who was looking for excuses to avoid his duty. Least did I expect that he would think of this brilliant idea of making an eco-friendly Ganesha and contribute in his own modest way towards environment protection. And he took just 5 days leave to complete this 6 feet idol!

That visit to the pandal made me realise that no matter what the background of a person is, each one has some skill and thinking about global issues like environment protection is not the exclusive privilege of educated lot.