Thank you, Dhanendra Kumar! When Sudhamahi Regunathan, Vice-Chancellor of the Jain Vishwa Bharati Deemed University, invited me this week to view a play that her university students was staging at the Kamani, I couldn't say no, fog or no fog. Two reasons for breaking this foggy vow. One, Sudhamahi is someone I greatly respect for her straightforward attitude and believe me there are only a handful whom one can respect in these times.
This play is based on Jain monk Acharya Mahaprajna's writings. To be precise, he wrote the script, based on a king conversing with the nature around him. On that particular evening, as the clock kept ticking by for the play to take off, one of the chief guests, Dr L.M. Singhvi, went on giving such a long opening speech.
When the other chief guest, Union Secretary for Culture Dhanendra Kumar arrived to give his speech, the audience gave each other those looks, “let’s see how long this man goes on speaking!”. But he was wise enough to not go beyond two impressive sentences. With that, the audience heaved a sigh of relief, as though saying “thank you Mr Dhanendra Kumar!”