Mahatma Gandhi (an Inspiration for the World)

As a kid, Gandhi Jayanti was nothing more than a school holiday for me. This bald smiling oldie guy on every paper note, I thought might be someone who invented money-thing. But as I grew up, hearing more of these names “Gandhiji”, “Mahatma Gandhi”, “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi”, numerous times in and out of school, hearing more and marking in MCQ papers about two principles of Gandhiji – Truth & Non-violence, I kept wondering that why is it such big a deal? 

TRUTH. NON-VIOLENCE. Yeah, everyone teaches us “sach-bolo” (speak truth), when in real world people lie all the time, and oh dear! Rajasthani people get darn violent at times. Don’t even get me started on our language!

In 2017, I went through a deep personal, spiritual and psychological crisis, when one thing that resonated with every cell of my being was “Truth”. I wanted to speak ONLY Truth and I wanted to hear ONLY Truth and nothing else. And damn, people lied and lied. It took me an year to recover from that nervous breakdown. I was a big time reader back then, I used to read sooooo many books, dear God (you definitely had mercy on the young little brain of that girl)!

I always had The Story Of My Experiments With Truth by Mahatma Gandhi lying (not “lying”) on my bookshelf all these years. I remember my brother (when he left home for the first time) kept a loving note for his little sister in that book and slightly nudged me to read the book. But I think every good book comes to you when you are ready. So this time when I started reading Gandhiji’s Autobiography properly for the first time, I was in awe. I mean literally you can imagine me with my mouth open gaping with both my eyes open wider, unblinkingly reading the introduction of this book. Being completely honest with you, I never completed the book. In-fact, I just read the first few chapters of it. But the impact it has had on me till date is far greater than a hundred not-so-good books I completed reading.

I have, in life, had my fair chances to come across many politically inclined people (left or right, I don’t care). I have heard people abusing Gandhi, I have sat in the debates where people discussed in-depth (or more precisely, “convinced”) each other whether Gandhi was really a “saint-man” or just another con-man politician our country had.

I am quiet when people debate about other people, especially when other people are big personalities and everyone has an opinion about them. I am quiet, not because I don’t have an opinion. I am quiet because I am seething with anger inside, at the ongoing violent word-slaughter of good people and good ideologies, in the name of a “healthy political discussion”.

I shall calm myself down again now, to complete this post hahaha! Just one thing would sum up what I wanna convey with this long blog post-

Read Gandhi to know Gandhi

Even the little Introduction which is only four-and-a-half pages of length, can be a real eye-opener and a fresh inspirational breeze for our long-sleeping sight.

I would like to close with Gandhi’s words from his Introduction of his Autobiography,

“The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust would crush him.”

Just imagine, a person who wrote such divine words must’ve been no less than a Mahatma indeed.

Happy Gandhi Jayanti