JOIN USPrema Bhaktha, a senior citizen wept with joy when little children from Gandhi Nagar Govt Pry school sang Happy Birthday on the occassion of her 75th birthday.
After having spent all her life battling odds and the barbs of the society, Prema had lost all her beliefs in supernatural powers and did not want to spend any money on pujas and such rigmarole associated with such celebration as she did not believe in any such and secondly she did not want the priestly class to profit out of it.
Hence, on the suggesstion of Aid Without Religion Trust Managing Trustee Narendra Nayak, Prema decided to celebrate her birthday in the govt school. Each child right from the kindergarten to the eighth standard was given a sumptuous piece of cake and a crisp vegetable puff which they thoroughly enjoyed. A teary-eyed Prema later told Nayak that it was the best birthday celebration in her life. Prema's daughter Dipti who had come down with her two children Nikhil and Mihir all the way from US to wish her mother happy birthday nodded in agreement and told she had never seen her mother so happy on any birthday. "Celebrate your birthday with something for the needy than splurge on celebrations. With the hooligans raiding birthday parties in the name of cultural degradation and display of immorality, this would be a good way, unless they raid such celebrations too under the pretext of cakes and puffs being against Hindu culture," he said.