NOVEMBER 12, 1998
It was indeed a red letter day for the Bahá’is of Bangalore, when the Bahá’is assembled at the TOWN HALL at 6 p.m. to find the Police Band tuned in to welcome the Baha’is, the 3500 approx. elite citizens, young and old, who were all specially invited by the Local Spiritual Assembly of Bangalore, to celebrate this most auspicious occasion.
Scores of Police personnel from Traffic Police to Crime Department welcomed the arrival of Mr. Revannasiddaiah - Commissioner of Police and the Director General of Police, accompanied with the Additional Commissioner - CRIME - Mr. Suresh Babu and Additional Commissioner - LAW & ORDER – Mr. Ram Murthy and DCP – Mr. Ulfath Hossain, who were received by the representatives of the Bahá’i Spiritual Assembly at the entrance. The Town Hall area was beautifully decorated by coloured lights and various banners sponsored by L & T [ Larsen & Toubro Ltd], who also put up a large photograph of Bahá’i House of Worship, New Delhi in the main reception foyer area and placed a huge size board on the dias, denoting the occasion of this function.
The Town Hall, which has a seating capacity of approx.1000 seats, additional hired chairs and the six carpets spread out in the balcony,increased the capacity to approx. 2000 guests, but the overflow of approx. 1500 people, covered every nook and corner of the Hall and from the entrance to the state passage was completely filled up. It took almost 5 minutes for the Police personnel to somehow create some space for the Commissioner to pass through along with the members of the Bahá’i Spiritual Assembly to reach the dais.
The stage was extremely gorgeous with adequate flowers , red carpets, with powerful focus lights lighting the entire stage and Chief Guest was escorted to the dais, after the MC announced the names of the persons, who officially conducted him on the stage. Mrs. Marzia Dalal, the eminent Bahá’i speaker, who was the exclusive Bahá’i speaker for this occasion, was then escorted to the dais along with the members of the Local Spiritual Assembly.
All this grand scale function to celebrate this auspicious occasion,
would not have taken place, if Mr. Faiz Yaganagi of Laos, would not
have encouraged our LSA to organize a massive proclamation and contributed
generously a sum of Rs. 40,000/- , which was added by the sacrificial
contributions from the Bahá’is of Bangalore city to cover expenses
up to Rs.70,000/- . Bangalore City Police, who had announced
November 1998, as a CRIME PREVENTION AWARENESS month,
were extremely happy to receive the Bahá’i delegation who offered
to work jointly by initially arranging a Painting Competition on the subject
where the Bahá’is worked in getting the 5000 drawing sheets,
with Police Commissioners stamp and the LSA seals on each of them.
These were distributed along with complete details and instructions to
51 leading Schools and educational institutions of
Bangalore, located all over the City limits. More then
3500 paintings along with Slogans were collected by the Local Spiritual
Aseembly representatives from all these schools and handed over to
the special Panel of Judges appointed by the Police Department for selecting
the Winners for first, second and third best for Painting and
First, second & third best for Slogans and 10 best consolation
Prizes. Assistant Commissioner of Police Mr Belliappa & his team
of 7 senior Police personnel had tough time in arriving at decision and
had to take help of DCP Mr. Ulfat Hossain, who guided them to reach
conclusion and announce above results. In addition to this the best
Painting from each school, was also selected for a Prize each.
The Function started exactly at 6.15 P.M. and after the Bahá’i prayers chanted in Kannada and in English by the Shenoy family, the invocation lamp was lit by the Chief Guests, the Guest Speaker and the 3 LSA members on the dias.
Mrs. Tuba Munje and Mr. Dinesh Rao, who conducted the entire program, kept the atmosphere extremely lively and the special 6 loud speakers arranged in the Town Hall, were adequate to reach every one.
Mrs. Tuba Munje gave the inaugural speech and then introduced the Program and the Bahá’i speaker Mrs. Marzia Dalal who had been specially invited by us from Pune.
Mrs. Marzia Dalal spoke eloquently in par excellence manner, describing the importance of the occasion and various salient features of the Bahá’i Faith and its history in brief. Speaking further on the subject of CRIME PREVENTION AWARENESS, she rightly pointed out to all concerned, that education and specially moral education plays such an important role, that increasing educational institutions, would ultimately result in constructing fewer jails. With various suitable examples she dwelled on the main theme and gave in various suggestions which were being noted very carefully by the Commissioner of Police, as witnessed by the Local Spiritual Assembly member sitting next to him on the dias. In conclusion she added that a formal subject - Virtues - should be added to the school curriculum.
There was a very loud applause from the audience duly acknowledged by The speaker - Mrs. Marzia Dalal.
The Chief Guest was then introduced from his Bio - data by Mr. Dinesh Rao and the Commissioner addressed at length, quoting Baha’u’llah and the Bahá’i Faith, several times and continuously praised the efforts of the Bahá’is of Bangalore, to co-operate with the Police authorities, in dealing with one of the most difficult task of Crime Prevention and maintenance of Law and Order, in the current atmosphere. He accepted that the spiritual and moral education only could bring about the desired standards and reduce Crimes.
Bahá’i songs were chanted in melodious tunes by the Shenoy family, who entertained the jam packed audience in the Hall.
The function ended with the prizes being distributed to the winners and the media, T.V. and photographers covered the entire event without any disturbance.
Before dispersing, the several Commissioners of Police assembled on the dais and had informal discussions with the Bahá’is and the friends gathered took opportunity to interact with the various dignitaries and important people, who attended this function.
Bahá’i literature and books, were suitably placed at the entrance door In the foyer, where more than 500 books were sold and pamphlets distributed to each person, who showed interest.
The Local Spiritual Assembly is grateful to the sponsors of the various prizes contributed by BPL Telecoms, Lavanya Press, Larson & Toubro Ltd., Fevicol, Camlin, Gangaram & Sons, Hotel Atria, Dr. & Mrs. Anil Kumar & family and a very special thanks to Saeed Samadi & family for offering the First Prize to the Winner of best Painting, in memory of his late Father - Mr. Samadi, who passed away to the Abha Kingdom, on the very day, we first went to the Town Hall to initiate arrangements.
We are extremely grateful to the National Spiritual Assembly of India’s Secretary, Mr. R. N. Shah, who was able to get us the Bahá’i Speaker From Pune - Mrs. Marzia Dalal, who accompanied by her sister Naznene from Mumbai, reached Bangalore and also participated in the Celebrations at the Bahá’i Centre on the 11th November, night ; where Ms. Naznene addressed the Bahá’i Community.
We are also grateful to the Auxiliary Board member Mr. Dinesh Rao who Put in all his sincere efforts, inspite of his extremely busy schedules and not only made all arrangements of fixing up the TOWN HALL , but arranged for the various sponsors, picking up the prizes and also sending out the invitations to the dignitaries of Bangalore.
The only entertainment programs and the chanting of the Bahá’i Prayers Were another landmark contribution from Auxiliary Board Member Mr.Ganesh Shenoy, and his family who will be remembered by the 3500 audience, in addition to the Titanic number presented by their children.
We have a special thanks for the State Bahá’i Council of Kartnataka, whoallowed their staff to help us throughout from the very inception of this program till the culmination, where they were involved with us in our day to - day activities.
Our Special thanks to the Bahá’i community of Kengeri for constant support especially on Nov 12th . We are also grateful to the Lioness Ms. Janaki kumar, Ms. Asha Kini who helped us tremendously, sometimes till late hours in the evening, towards all our preparations.
This function gave us fantastic opportunities to meet and discuss the Bahá’i Faith and present various Bahá’i literature to each Principal / Head Master / Head Mistress / the Drawing Teachers of each of the 51 leading schools of Bangalore, with whom we now have a personal acquaintance which will be utilised by us as a follow - up, when we re - visit each one of them to hand over the Bahá’i House of Worship wall clock and the Competition Certificates, being awarded to each of the 3680 student participants from these Schools to whom we sent out proper invitation cards, inviting their parents to this function and had enclosed a very special pamphlet prepared by our LSA pertaining to the relevant subject. Moreover, every Best Painting from each school was awarded a Prize in the form of the Bahá’i House of Worship clock, which will adorn 51 houses.
Last but not the least, the Local Spiritual Aseemby Bangalore has to acknowledge the efforts of the 14 local Bahá’is, who rose to the occasion and gave in their valuable time, generous contributions of money to cover the expenses and worked for the last fortnight, sometimes from early morning to late in the night, undertaking the responsibilities , which under normal circumstances would have needed far too many hands to complete the tasks.
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Reported by Secretary:
LOCAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’IS OF BANGALORE