We were a gang of five in Presidency College, Madras, in 1944 when we recalled the heady days of the Quit India Movement and spun and wore only khadi. We’d never met Gandhiji and were excited at the thought of being able to see and hear him at a prayer meeting. We were lucky that our classmate had a house by the side of the maidan from where we could have a ringside view of the dais and the people who had gathered.
We left college after lunch and took a bus to the Hindi Prachar Sabha grounds. Already we could see busload of people being ferried to and fro. Although it was just noon, the roads were choc-a-bloc with people walking to the venue. The prayer meeting would start only at 6pm. Such was the veneration Gandhiji was held in.
Standing on the terrace of my friend’s house we watched the crowds below. They were well behaved, patient and did not need the police to control them. Volunteers went round serving water to the thirsty as the afternoon sun was hot and relentless. Slowly evening set in. The heat became less, the clock ticked on, and just a minute before six, Gandhiji came onto the dais and bowed to the people. There were no loud, noisy claps to greet his appearance. It was as if one was in the presence of someone divine. The silence was electrifying.
Then my friend’s daughter, about 12, dressed in a pavadai and blouse, sang the prayer effortlessly and with full-throated ease. Gandhiji then started to speak. Did the crowd understand what he was saying? It did not matter. They had come all the way, borne the scorching sun just to have a darshan of him. Gandhiji spoke on, frail as he was. The setting sun cast an orange glow as he ended his speech.
What was it about Gandhiji, “an ugly old man” as Sarojini Naidu affectionately called him, that so endeared him to people? Why was he worshipped by the common man? Was it because he sacrificed his career, went to jail many times, and wasn’t afraid to give up his life for his principles, taught ahimsa? It may have been all of these. But what endeared him most to the common man was that he was like one of them, to whom they could relate. He wore the scantiest of clothes, wooden chappals and cheap rimless spectacles. He ate sparsely. If ever there had been a politician who was dear to the hearts of the common man, it was this man. No wonder they called him the Mahatma.
One could say that “the elements so mixed in him/ That nature could stand up to all the world and say This was a man”.
I am filled with nostalgia when October 2 nears. To have been ruled by the British, to have witnessed the fight for freedom, to have seen how people sacrificed their careers and even their lives, all led by one man and then to have been freed was an exhilarating experience.
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven.”