Glasgow: A pleasant experiences, worth sharing and worth emulating.

Many years ago, when I landed at Glasgow airport, it happened to be Birthday of British (Scottish) poet Robert Burns. As I was alighting from flight, every passenger was greeted by a pleasant official of a private airline on the tarmac. He presented every passenger with hallmark Scottish pride gifts, 1- A well bound book containing collection of poems by Robert Burns and 2- A small bottle of scotch. Along with these gifts, he also passed on pamphlets that provided celebratory program schedules at various locations in city and a list of addresses of restaurants that offered celebratory dinner with poet’s favorite dish, “haggis”.

Scotland is proud of her son, Robert Burns, who had died nearly 250 years ago. His poems evoke Scottish nationalism. Certainly worthy of emulating similar practice in our country with our heroes. My friends in Scotland assured me that haggis is not really a tasteful dish that they can enjoy and yet they never skip eating it on Burns’ birthday. Not only is it tradition, eating it evokes pride and nationalism, much the same way national flag or national anthem does.

May be some corporate houses can go out of their beaten path and think of honoring their towns, traditions, literature, sanskriti etc. using appropriate gifts on appropriate occasions. A well-made miniature Taj Mahal, a metallic Shivaji, miniature Bridge of Hawrah, Mumbai Halawa, Puran Poli, Tulasi Ramayan. The list can be endless. Every town and city has something to offer from its history and tradition. Ministry of culture and tourism can enable this scheme.