The first time I saw this movie was sometime in 1984-1985 (I was in Class I) then. The only memories of it I still retain was the train scene where he was thrown out on the basis of his colour. Thanks to
Shashi I had the opportunity to watch the movie this time when I went home for Diwali. If you have not watched that movie or if you have watched it at a very young age (like I did) then I would recommend that you go watch it again. 27 years of living into this country and almost 10 years since I left school, I am ashamed that I knew so little about this man whom we call "The Father of our nation".
"He won us independence in a non-violent way." - the crux of his life that school taught me.
Well, that is nice, but what does it mean ? Was he the first to protest without arms ? What's special about him ? What was special about his protests as against those who protested (non-violently) before him ? Was it his barrister status ? His English education ? Or was it a single train incident ?
The movie
Gandhi was excellent. I do not know how much of 'cinematics' went into it, for I have not read 'My experiments with truth'. The movie starts with a mere mortal, angry Indian who was thrown out of the train on the basis of his skin colour (or non-European origin). It then proceeds to describe the shy public speaker who could not inspire a small gathering but nevertheless displays his integrity braving physical attack. A not-so-magical transformation brought about by the director leads us to the same youth now inspiring an even larger gathering of suppressed South Africans of Indian Origin. Ben Kingsley sparkles as Gandhi whenever he gives that half a smile response with highlighted by the confidence from within.
The movie portrays Nehru, Jinnah and Patel as proponents of 'Home rule movement'. More in the lines of we can run the slaves ourselves, we dont need whites to do it. We want to rule ourselves, etc.. Gandhi was more of action, more of hitting at the root. 'Treat us as equals in the British Empire'.
- If India's famine was aggravated by merchandise from manchester, let's not wear foreign clothes and dig our own grave - Not one of I hate Britishers so I wont wear British clothes.
- If the 'non-violent' struggle for freedom is marred by incidence of violence, let's not go on with the struggle - we are not ready yet then.
- You can take my sweat, my blood even my dead body but you can never get my obedience to an unjust law.
A message of pure love. The movie was successful in delivering it. It was so coherent in presentation that each step by the great soul was explained with a cause, instead of being a chronologically ordered set of events that you can lookup in the Encyclopedia against 'Indian Freedom Movement'. I was so moved by this man. I couldnt see Ben Kingsley in it, just the real one and I was moved.
Before the impact of the movie could go away, I was shocked to read this article:
Gandhi vows to punish . It was clear when I clicked on that link. This Gandhi and the original one have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing.
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