Holi is a time to celebrate the onset of spring, a day when people spray water and colours on one another in a spirit of camaraderie. The fact that this occasion is sometime misused to trouble and harass others by throwing colours at those who are not interested in celebrating is sad. There is also the risk of the use of all kinds of toxic powders, which can do harm. Unless better sense prevails and people stop marring the day with such unsavory practices, this beautiful festival may soon vanish into memory.
There are also a large number of people who celebrate Holi the way it is supposed to be enjoyed, by using natural colours and not chemicals. Mostly used in powder form, some of these colours can be mixed in water and sprayed. Being natural, it washes away easily and, more importantly, is not harmful.
However, we do come across many complaints on people wasting water while celebrating this festival of colours, and thus Holi should not be celebrated for this very reason. The irony is that most people who advocate such a ban, knowingly or unknowingly waste a massive amount of water in their day-to-day life.
To draw an example from our daily life, this practice of wasting water occurs with the commonly used device at home — the RO water purifier. It is a fact that such water purifying technology wastes approximately three litres of water to give one litre of purified water. In simple terms, 75 per cent of the water being processed by such purifiers is wasted and a small minority try to use this waste water for other purposes. They take the trouble to have a separate drain line and storage for this waste water, which can later be used for other purposes.
However, the majority of the users of RO water purifiers I have interacted with let the waste-water pipe drain into the sink. Simply put, this approach qualifies for an old saying, ‘Penny wise and pound foolish’, where a person gets caught up with relatively minor and irrelevant issues while ignoring larger ones.
This is quite common in the professional space, especially during meetings. One small point, ultimately very minor, in the larger scheme of things dominates the discussion. Apart from being a waste of hours, either debating this or being a spectator to such an exchange, more important matters gets overlooked.
As aspiring management professionals, you should guard against getting caught up in such irrelevant or minor issues while retaining the focus on the core matters. If you consciously focus on the truly important aspects of work, then it would fetch you effective returns and lead to successful results.