![]() ![]() At one point, the poet asks if Gandhi is a story we might have heard, because of how implausible his goals were. There is also the Gandhi who was a flicker of light that remained undimmed in all weathers indefatigable and steadfast in a purpose that he alone best understood. There is the Gandhi who marched to Dandi as an act of civil disobedience to teach us to be our own masters and unshackle ourselves from slavery. ![]() ![]() ![]() Then there is the Gandhi who springs up occasionally from the pages of our history books as the Father of the Nation. There is another Gandhi, the one who fell into a ‘burning clay pot’ of his own making - perhaps this refers to the Gandhi who strove for religious pluralism all his life to fall to the bullet of a religious fanatic. One Gandhi is the man who walks alone on a path so difficult that even his followers, the anugami, fail to accompany him. But Nair’s poem (‘Gandhi’), even to the untrained ear, is a powerful portrayal of the many Gandhis we might claim to know. We are not historians, or philosophers, or poets. Short excerpt from the book AppuEsthose and I have written, released today on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. ![]()
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