A Mahatma among us

In Olde Madras..
Long before Gandhian Studies became a fashionable subject..
Among research scholars...ambitious writers...and such like..
Before politically correct publishing houses put him on their publishing lists.....
I discovered my first book on the Mahatma...

Frequent transfers were part of the deal for bankers back then..and so it was that a certain Mr Mundkur left two whole crates of books with Father's friend, before setting off to introduce banking in some remote corner of darkest Africa...
Father's friend got transferred and in turn bequeathed the crates to Father..
Who left them under the staircase in HIS father's family house...

Where as a child I liked to poke around...looking for treasure......
And found this treasure chest of books...
Enid Blyton, the Brothers Grimm, Richmal Crompton, Jim Corbett, Kenneth Anderson, Louisa May Alcott, children's magazines imported from the United Kingdom, stories from the Soviet Union....and many other cherished books....all of which proclaimed their owner to be Anand S Mundkur...

Mr Mundkur's son I presume?..
The books remain unclaimed to this day...

So much to read on languid summer days...over several long drawn summers....
Lying on the bed..
The fan whirring on...

A children's book on Gandhi was part of this collection..a slim one filled with fine sketches......
It started with scenes from Gandhiji's funeral..took me back to his birth and early life.....through the high points that followed ...and ended with his assassination...

I was all of seven years old...no one had told me about Gandhi until then.....
The book..it made me cry....
He was a hero...
I wished I had been Gandhi...
Driven the white man out...
Set us all free....

Years later...
Kid brother No:2 told me:
"You, you like to be Gandhi!!"
But he said it with a sneer...as in "You, you killjoy you..."

Not at all like I was a hero or something..
More like "You are the worst pain in the a--- in the whole wide world.."

Especially when I trotted out my "we should do the right thing" dialogue.....
Why can't we just pay the damned bribe?...Or pay the damned donation? ...Or do what it damn well takes to get a move on?...was his view of things...
Let's be practical here...... is probably what he wanted to say..
Just pack up your idealism and your airy-fairy notions of life....he probably wanted to add...

Yea, but then...
I have always been a fan of the Mahatma...
Even Attenborough's Gandhi (who called himself Gandy to rhyme with Candy..)
Made the hair at the back of my neck stand up......
Especially in the Champaran scenes...
"I am an Indian, traveling in my own country..what law could I be breaking???" or some such lines to the British officer trying to shoo him away....

He was the touchstone
And several generations of Indians measured themselves against him...
It made them opt for the straight and narrow...
We may not be materially rich..but then it is more important to be morally rich-kind of people...
True, even I don't find many of this tribe around..they are dying out...the fascination for the Mahatma and his idealism may have ended with my own generation....


So ended....
That I could not even buy the "Story of My Experiments with Truth" at the bookshop closest to me in Chennai......that belongs to a publishing house..which also has a publishing list on Gandhian Studies...which it likes to trot out with great pride....
"That one was written by MK Gandhi no Madam?..Sorry Madam...No demand..we'll have to order that one...I'll let you know as soon as I get it Madam", the salesperson told me...so sweetly....two years ago..

Yet...studies abound..
Delving into.....
His sexual experiments...
His political deviousness.....
His bania cunning...
His treatment of Kasturba...sorta thumbs down there until they discover the Kasturba Diaries..if ever..
His kids...kinda.. sorta... ditto there they give him...
He was so human..as if that is a fault....what do they expect???? A halo???
He had a soft spot for a Bengali beauty.....
Freedom would have come anyway..sooner or later....
He was not perfect........not 100% pure as guaranteed...maybe only 98.99%...or 98% ...or maybe just about 95.02% pure..so...
Pull him down from the pedestal.....

His own grandsons have jumped on the bandwagon to write some of these, often forgettable memoirs....
And no one tries to dispel the confusion that prevails among the masses...by the other Gandhi name holders... of India's premier political family....

He was human but also very different from other human beings.....
Not an easy act to follow.....
To live a principled life..
To be true to thine own self...
Hey, that's no easy ride...
And ultimately, we see what we want to see...

I realized the value of having a Mahatma among us during my own sojourn in the Land of Sawadee and Smiles.......
For all their bravado, I sensed a yearning among the people there for direction...
Someone to look up to in moral terms...
But there is no one....
No one they can measure themselves up against...
Other than monks and holy men..
Their closest equivalent to a Gandhi may be a former central banker known for his honesty....or a leader of the Opposition who heads the vegetarian movement in that country..
Gandhi was all that and so SO much MUCH more

So, a certain moral vacuum and dithering prevails in these lands...
Materially rich but morally bereft...

Gandhi made me feel strong...
No other country in the whole wide world has anyone to equal him...in moral stature...
We are so strong..in the eyes of the world and in our own..because of him...
Because of Gandhi
We can hold our heads up among the peoples of the World...
We should be so proud...

Today...on his birthday
And always..