First day of class, a punishment to write a report for 1600 words and a boring 1.5 hour session later I was sipping on chai, just to shirk off the yawn that might have engulfed all of Singapore at least if not the Maldives. Leadership, vision and blah blah was the name of the next lecture - to be honest, this term was supposed to be a fraud competition to see who can choose subjects that do not require one racking his brains and losing more hair ;) So there I sat, smiling, because hell if a leadership and vision subject isn't fraud, I got no clue what is ! Ambling back to the lecture hall, climbed up to the second last row, corner seat to stay away from all attention while I slip into deep slumber. Just to complete the context, I have missed around 4 days of school, and as a result missed the screening of "the making of the Mahatma" - a movie on how M. K. Gandhi became a Mahatma.
In general, ask an engineering graduate who is doing his MBA to participate in such a discussion, like me he would just tilt the head either side and gently close his eyes, with an open mouth, wide enough to slip a ciggy in and not blow a whistle or snore. Well of course I followed suit, but unfortunately, the students presenting chose to beat the crap out of my eardrums and the sounds of "Raghupati Raghav" reverberated with the sound of drums beating against the membrane of my inner ear (XII standard Biology HL - A+ - pat pat eh ? ;) ) A boring monologue that lasted 30 miserable minutes of a guy dressed up in a khadi kurta and blabbering something that sounded more to impress the professor than show his true feelings or opinions - why, you ask ? Well you judge for yourself, if the guy actually states "Gandhi's doctrine of showing the other cheek if slapped on one should be applicable to the Kargil War" - OMG, how ignorant can one be ?! I'll let that pass too, since hypocrisy breeds in a lot of pockets here, but then if one of the curious members in the audience goes ahead and blurts out - "Gandhi was responsible for nearly half as many deaths as inflicted by Hitler", am sorry but I just lose it ! I am not a Gandhian or an anti-Gandhian for that matter, but there is a line which you need to draw between reasonableness and total arbitrary bull!
I chose to keep mum. Was the best policy. You can only reason amongst a bunch of people who understand what "listening" means - but apparently our young age extrovert junta (public) has forgotten to exercise the cochlean muscles :*sigh* - such a pity. The discussion ensued for a bit, nonsense corollaries were presented, to the height of Gandhi being called a selfish fool. Oh well, agreed some of his principles might not get us anywhere in today's cut throat egotistical existence, but we need to consider the context in which we adjudge him to be a fool or a Mahatma - nobody can be God - hell am an agnostic so no-bloody-one can ! ;) What surprised me was that how easy it was for all of us to judge a man who stood up for something, who had the balls to speak up, whatever be his motives. We often fret for our own sorrows and issues, not giving a rat's ass for the sufferings others go through. Where does our sense of judgement go then? The Mumbai blasts evoked national sentiment, then a headline in HT and TOI came that read something to the effect of - "one month hence, Mumbai goes back to normal and is coping with the horror of 26/11" - and voila, people rub their hands off the tension and their share of being compassionate or concerned is taken care of - "humne apni moral responsibility poori kar di hai bhai" (we have fulfilled our moral responsibility). Strange. Is this the same public which discards and demolishes the idea of Gandhi as a Mahatma for his want of being popular? Is this the same public which says that Gandhi was responsible for so many deaths and yet turns it face away after some time thanking God it wasn't them in the massacre or terrorist attack? I never thought benevolence or anything even remotely related to it was a prominent trait of us humans - but to realise the levels of hypocrisy we have reached - its a shame.
Wonder what authority we have to even embark upon a discussion of whether or not Gandhi was a Mahatma. Call it the whine of a young Indian, a complaint of the previous GenX, or a momentary lapse into a dying conscience, but this fact shook me a little - but as always, am gonna think over it for a bit, gulp down a paracetamol and go off to bed, praying not for the souls of those who got lost in the Mumbai attacks but for me to get well so that I can go sleep through my lectures tomorrow morning.
1 comment:
Very intuitive portrait of Mr. Gandhi first of all ;). No-one gets 100% support, there would always be some opposition and mistakes are committed by everyone then how can this man be an exception. Let him be what he was and people should move on, they should focus on other important issues rather than deciding on whether Gandhi was mahatma or not. No-one would get anything out of such debates or whatever they do :)
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