Last week,
the Rotary Club of Panaji organised an interactive discussion on heritage.
Rajendra Kerkar shared stories of blinkered attitudes towards natural heritage
in the tiger habitat in Goa. Prajal Sakhardande depicted the lameness of law in
protecting heritage sites. Victor Hugo Gomes shared his pain of seeing the
literal burning down of ancient artefacts. Maria de Lourdes Bravo da Costa
Rodrigues decried the careless maintenance of existing documents due to the
shifting focus towards acquiring new ones.
The audience
discovered their own heritage unfolded through the passion of the panellists. They
were also exposed to the harsh reality of the destruction of age-old heritage treasures.
The enduring message was best articulated by Maria who said that ‘preservation
is more important than acquisition!’
The statement can spread across a wider spectrum... preserving
old treasures is more important than acquiring new riches... preserving existing
relationships is more important than acquiring new friends... So often, so
easily we move for further acquisitions while losing out on the ones in hand. In
the greed to get more, we give up on what we already possess.
Of course, new acquisitions are not always a bad thing, if we do
not lose hold on the earlier collection of assets. Let’s take inspiration from
the poem ‘heritage’ by Chidi Okoye who wrote, ‘my past is my life... the mother
of my future’. We must place preservation as a priority over acquisition.
Let’s BE BETTER at preserving the existing roots
Instead of senseless acquisition of newer fruits!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
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