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The Rotund Rotarian
An Image or an outrage?
Rtn. Rajiv Sharma
Rotary Club of Bhusaval
Rotary International District
3030 INDIA
(With
inspiration from here & there Some
of written below is my own original thoughts but
if I claim this to be
wholly my original writing then The purpose of writing what I
have written is wholly lost)
Rotary is an amazing thing.
 I’ve
been a Rotarian for an awfully long time — 19 years now — and
I’ve gotten kind of used to it, so every so often I have to stop
and remind myself just how amazing Rotary is. And I think that
that’s a valuable exercise for all of us who’ve been in Rotary
for a while. I joined Rotary in 1993, when I was only 27 years
old. I joined not because I wanted to then, my Dad who was also
Rotarian dragged me to the Club. I became member then but a
Rotarian in 1999 when I was elected to serve as Club Secretary.
Now at 46 I look back and see mixed bag of achievements and
disappointments, yes disappointments – of missed opportunity to
do few things differently. Here I few of my thoughts when I look
around at fellow Rotarians and myself.
As a wicked wit is said to have said that
while Rotary Clubs might grid the entire free world, the
conjoined circumferences of the Rotarians waistlines will easily
equal the equator. I myself must confess to being just below
average in this respect. I have claimed it to be a sign of
success, the visible symbol of prosperity, and the out ward
expression of a happy man. But, deep inside I know myself to be
a loser in the battle (not entirely, I may have lost few
battles, but not yet lost the war) of the bulge, but still
fighting hard. I have to admit to being in the illustrious
company of “Rotund Rotarians”.
But does our flabbiness stop with the
figure? Or does it extend to our outlook on life? Are we pot
bellied organizationally? Are our thoughts as unruly as our
muscles? Are our loudly lauded projects only the guilty reflexes
of an overloaded conscience? Are we really the “fat cats” of
popular conceptions?
Or do we represent the active conscience
of social justice? Does not the popular image of a Rotarian as a
“do-gooder” spring at least partly from a certain self-righteous
smugness on our part? Do we beat our breasts too loudly to the
local press and in self adulation? Do we exude complacency along
with our pinch of generosity? Do we not vitiate our virtuous
effort by an all too obvious superficiality of interest?
Is our so-called fellowship all too
hollow and shallow? Does our concern with each other end with
the dessert? Do we apply the 4 Way Test only to the four courses
of our Rotary Dinner? Are we in any way responsible for the
general conception of a Rotarian as an epitome of false
brotherhood? Are we rewarding “personal loyalties at the expense
of loyalty & dedication to Rotary? Do we wear our smiles in our
sleeves and our hearts in our purses? Do we meet once a week for
“Service Above Self” or “service about self”.
I have put forth this avalanche of
questions in your collective faces with no malice in my heart
towards none, because I am one of you, THE EMINENT ROTUND
ROTARIAN. It is impossible to imagine – let alone expect –
perfection in a man or in an organization, but let us be choosy
in our imperfections and above all honest in our acceptance of
it. “Let us not become
the victims of our own delusions”.
Hence the need for a new and penetrating
looks at us. It may be too much too demand that success and self
sacrifice should go hand in hand but it should not happen that
eminence in business or vocation should find sincerity a strange
bedfellow. It is true that successful man is a busy man, but it
should not be tolerated that such member remains as one without
adequate involvement; he should realize that he was invited to
Rotary precisely because he is a busy man, a successful man. On
the other hand success may place a Rotarian in elevated position
but we must not let it cause us to look down on the fellowman.
Success comes rather late in life to
most, and since leadership in our professions, business, or
vocation is a guiding spirit of our classification principles,
it is bound to be that the physical image of the average
Rotarian is that of the Rotund Rotarian & alas rotundity is
almost unavoidable in later life. Let the cordial image of the
Rotund Rotarian remind us of the need for every Rotarian to act
upon the square in humanity, in sincerity, and in service.
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