Florine Roche
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Mangalore, Sep 2: Recently Karnataka Government declared a holiday to mourn the death of writer and Jnanapith awardee U R Ananthamurthy, who passed away at the age of 82. This ‘holiday’ added to the never-ending list of holidays given to schools, colleges and government offices by the central and state governments. So sarkari babus and school and college going students had a bonus holiday to ‘mourn’ URA’s death. Once again we proved that India is probably the only place where there are more holidays legal or otherwise than working days. Our country takes great pride in declaring holidays at the drop of a hat. Apart from holidays for religious festivals of different religions we add ‘mourning’ holidays and there are forced holidays due to Bundhs, strikes etc. Ours is a society that cannot boast of a work culture based on the philosophy of ‘work is worship’ widely prevalent in most countries.

To cite the recent example a friend of mine told me the other day that soon after Chief Minister Siddharamaigh declared a holiday following the demise of URA her son was constantly in touch with his college friends as they all wanted to go on an outing as colleges were closed. He had succeeded in gathering a group of 14 boys to be a part of the fun group. So on this mourning day they first went for a movie and after the movie along with their packed lunch they went to a nearby waterfall in their cars and bikes to return only in the evening. He had informed about it to his parents who were left with no option but to say yes as today’s youngsters dictate terms to parents than vice versa. This must be the case with many other students especially college going youngsters who cannot think of spending a day at home doing nothing. They get bored as they cannot imagine life without TV, computers, mobiles or enjoying with friends that also includes going on joy rides.

And the lesser said about government servants the better it is. This being a bonus holiday they celebrated it at home may be having an extra dish for lunch or watching some movie in television or in theatres to keep themselves busy and engaged. One cannot expect these babus to sit and mourn URA’s death all through the day and it is not fair also. May be many of them had an additional dish cooked at home and peg or too to overcome the sadness of having lost a literary luminary. In other words it can be said that by declaring a holiday the people of the state actually enjoyed that day thus belittling the very meaning of mourning. Being a Saturday it proved to be a prolonged holiday for some others who even planned to go on a short tour. So who actually mourned the death of URA?

This essay is not to disparage the greatness of U R Ananthamurthy. Agreed, he is a Jnanapith awardee, a writer of great standing whose recent political uttering had created quite a political stir in the country. What did we achieve by declaring a holiday on this day other than losing a working day? The saving grace was that it was a Saturday and we can say only half day was lost because banks work only for half day on Saturdays. But the moot question is do we really need a holiday to mourn the death of a VIP in the country who died at the ripe age of 82? It is not just URA we are talking about. The greatest respect we can pay to a departed soul is in the form of a two minute silent prayer. Declaring a holiday will lose the very sanctity of ‘mourning’ attached to the holiday. Every year we celebrate Gandhi Jayanthi on October 2nd which is a public holiday. Isn’t it an insult to the father of the nation that we refrain from working to mark his birthday?

There has been a rethinking at the national level to cut down the number of public holidays as we have too many of them confined mainly to the government and public sector organisations that includes nationalised banks. When these sectors are closed the entire system comes to a grinding halt disrupting the work which ultimately affects common people of this country. This is also crippling our economy to a considerable extent. The fifth Pay Commission had recommended cutting down public holidays and the central government had accepted recommendations as a result of which casual leave given to central government employees were reduced from 12 to 8.

The list of public holidays of a public sector bank for 2014 has shown 25 public holidays and some of these holidays come in a bunch which means they come in between the week at a stretch which employees often club with Saturdays and Sundays. This means even if there are two or three holidays they are clubbed giving the employees a long stretch of holidays. These holidays are also applicable to state government employees and public sector organizations. Come October 2014, banks and government organisations will get bonanza of six public holidays. To add to that twice in the same month they can go on a long stretch of holidays clubbing Saturdays and Sundays to the existing holidays thus bringing the government machinery to a complete halt.

Such situations can be avoided if employees are optional holidays to take leave according to their religious beliefs and requirements rather than give enmasse leave to all the employees. We in India lack the work culture prevalent in many western countries though we blindly follow them in many other spheres. If we continue the present trend we are setting a bad precedent for our young generations t follow. It is often said ‘too much is too bad’ and holidays can be enjoyable only when they don’t come too often.