A Plea To Gandhi Jee

Imagine…a hut with mud walls and a thatched roof standing upright on the parched soil, supported with bamboo sticks. A bespectacled, old man in a white dhoti, aided by a wooden stick enters into it. He sits on the floor and looks into the web cam. The next moment you find his message of peace and love being seen by the people all over the world on the giant screen, on their cell phones, on laptops etc.

People are mesmerized and awed by his message. He definitely was one of the most powerful communicators of the 20th century.

Even if you don’t admire truthfulness, don’t love for your fellow beings and believe in violence, still without doubt, you will recognize this man as Mahatma Gandhi and the above is the advertisement of “Telecom Italia” which finally asks an unanswerable question –

“Imagine the world today – if he could have communicated like this”

Somehow the advertisement has struck the right chord and won the Epica Award, Europe's premier creative awards. I was also touched by the advertisement, more so because I consider Mahatma Gandhi as one of my ideals. I was happy to see that he is still held high as an individual and look with great respect and that people in western world think that him as a formidable force that could have changed the course of history.

Not to talk further of the western world, what about us? We claim to be the people of the land to whom Mahatma belongs. It was his birth place. The father of our nation was the son of our soil but what have we done to honor him. I need not talk as we all know – we all ought to be ashamed of what we have done to Mahatma Gandhi’s India or rather we should sit upright and now think – how to resurrect India – the moral India.

We can still change the world or prevent it from deteriorating further if we adopt his principles of love, truth and non-violence but why we are not able to pursue them. We lack inspiration. We lack his inspiration. Can we do it? Can we make India – the Mahatma’s India? Can we give her the glory that Mahatma Gandhi would have brought to her?

Sorry Gandhi jee, we can’t. We don’t know how to love any more. We can’t survive by being truthful and we think that any sacrifice will bring doom to us. We have limits. Only Mahatma could defy all limits. We need you, your inspiration, your sacrifice, your truthfulness and your love.

Please Gandhi jee, come back to your people. Your principles alone will not suffice, we need you. Come back to show us the way out of this maze. You did it once; you made us believe once that we could do it. Make us believe again that we can do this time too.
We are waiting for you Gandhi jee; we are waiting for a Mahatma.