He once walked on earth...

From the drawing rooms of a few flamboyant politicians, to the heart of a farmer of Champaran ; who had never enjoyed the luxury to taste two meals for decades, who was forced to grow indigo for his profit seeking British landlords; this man took the war for independence, to the battlefields where brute met truth.

It was not a war against the British rule, never was. It was a war against everything that was unjust, against, even the form of war which brought justice in an unjust way. It was a war against the demons we all have in our heads. Those demons, that make us human, those, that make us so inhuman.

The war that this man waged not only brought freedom to us, it also explained to the 350 million of this land, what freedom meant. It definitely did, that there was more to freedom than unfurling a different flag. Freedom never could have meant the right to set the Chauri-Chaura police station on fire in lieu of the Amritsar massacre. An eye for an eye, seldom does not maketh the whole world blind. What separates this man from many contemporaries, was his decision to call off the non-cooperation movement when the entire nation was on the move…When the entire nation was aroused…

He felt, it was not ready, yet to appear for the final exam. It had to sit down and take a 20 year long course in ahimsa, in communal harmony, in equality of women and men, in equality of men and women of all castes, in swadeshi.It had to understand that independence brought with it the great responsibility to see right from wrong, and, to stick to it through thick and thin.

The nation, parts of it definitely, still did burn, when it finally was time to unfurl, the crescent and the tricolour, on consecutive days; and this frail stick, clad in khaadi, had to go east, to water the fire when all eyes were on the red fort; at that stroke of midnight.

The exams were over, or had they just begun?

Free India, too could not digest, him eating all his meals, and the old man had to fast, once again, unto death, to give his 35 crore sons and daughters, a crash course in hindu-muslim brother/sisterhood. The idea of peace, harmony, satya , and ahimsa has always found it hard to make way through the thick skins of so many of us. When it was time to go, he knew, his job was not done, there were a lots who needed to undergo a few more crash courses in ideologies and principles, India cannot do without. “Over to you, ‘HEY RAM’”, was all we could here him say, as he left in the hurry, that he always was in.

We do remember him once in a while by celebrating his principles and ideologies by raking up issues like ‘The Ram Janm Bhoomi’ , ‘The Godra Train massacre’, ‘The Ram something something Setu’

Nonetheless, we are a lucky lot. We’ve got a father we can always look upto....if not in our moments of reflection, atleast on our currency notes, we hold in such high esteem...Long live Mahatma, the WALKER.