Have you ever thought about how each one of us have different perspectives about the same thing?
One such incident.. some more than 10 years ago, Indian currency notes had Mahatma Gandhi only on rupee notes of denominations Rs 500 and more. And one fine day almost all rupee notes right from Rs 5 to all denominations upto Rs 1000 started to have Mahatma Gandhi on them.
In a casual conversation with my friend, I just pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi has now come down to Rs 5 from his Rs 500. But my friend immediately quipped, "Yeah.. but now Mahatma Gandhi is with more people".
What a different perspective? I was surely stumped by it. A much different thought .. and I must add a much more positive one... Hats off... man !!
Today is Sarvodaya Day aka Martyrs' day. This is the day when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, truly a black day in our history. It is a pity that we really dont remember this great man today and we hardly even observe a couple of minutes of silence for the Father of our Nation.
Some weeks back I read a biography of Mahatma Gandhi by Taya Zinkin, one of the many biographies about this amazing person. It was a very well written biography, a westerner's perspective of Gandhi. The author had pointed out some of the greatest strengths of this man was the "passive resistance", treading the unflinching path of truth and hence Satyagraha. Actually, this book has been lying around for nearly a couple of decades now in my house. It was one of the prizes I received in my primary school for a debate competition I think. I am surprised I never read it all these days.
I still remember one of the small snippets on National Television back in late 80s and 90s which showed a simple 2 stroke sketch of Gandhi (his bald head and his spectacles) with the narration "The Greatness of this man was his simplicity". It was an amazingly strong message through a 10 sec clip. I searched around the web (You Tube, Google, Yahoo Videos) in vain.
I was impressed by one of the ads for Telecom Italia which portrays the Mahatma. Very innovative.
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