Monday, August 29, 2016

Fellowship

Last Thursday - the 98 birth anniversary of poet Vinda Karandikar - brought along a memory (told to me by my father) about the ‘Murgi Club’. Vasant Bapat, Mangesh Padgaonkar, Gangadhar Gadgil, Sadanand Rege, Shri Pu Bhagwat and Vinda met regularly for several years to eat together and spar with wordplay and literary jokes. The ‘Murgi club’ was loosely fashioned after the Algonquin Round Table.

For over ten years from 1919 to 1929, a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits met every day over lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. They engaged in wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms. Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members to collaborate creatively.



Many of us are part of such tables of fellowship, where we eat together, engage in wit and wisecracks. But it is pertinent to ponder whether these meetings lead to creative collaborations or empower individual expression triggered by the influence of the collective. Just delicious food and humour cannot be an enduring motivation.

While the principal purpose is to have a good time with persons who can take and give witticisms, the larger purpose that sustains such groups is the food for thought that gets shared at the fellowship table. Hence it is important for the group to have diversity of capacity and competence and everyone has to respect this diversity.

Fellowship should not be just about a group with a common aim or intent. It should not just be about friendships, relatedness or connection between colleagues in a group. It should move beyond fun to interesting collaborations or it should empower individual contributions triggered by the ideation at the fellowship table.

That fellowship table is the most sought,
Which serves diverse food for thought!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

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