A soul forgotten

Our country today celebrates 141st birth anniversary of a legendary social and political reformer who changed the course of struggle for freedom.Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,our beloved 'father of the nation' ,as many of us might not even remember,was born on 2 october, 1869 in Porbandar,Gujrat.Every year this day is observed worldover as International Non-Violence Day.

I am rather unqualified and immature to write about Gandhiji because our generation never witnessed the greatness of his soul.All is left of him today is a national holiday observed on his birthday every year.People seldom talk about the sufferings he confronted for the sake of independence of this country.We have statues of him standing in almost all parts of the country,but nobody even bothers to maintain a hygiene around them.Twice in a year do they grab attention,are washed up and cleaned, and covered in floral designs.The big question is who are we doing this for?Maybe to show that superficially we care,when infact we don't.

My understanding about Gandhiji goes so far to suggest that he was a divine figure who was born to lead the independence movement and left us when his job was done.Our country became independent on 15 August,1947 and Gandhiji was assassinated soon after that on 30 January,1948.He was an expatriate during his stay in South Africa where he worked for the social upliftment of the blacks.Only in 1915 did he return to India and joined the struggle for independence.Non-violence was his only tool in the struggle and he exercised it to the point where the British government came down on its knees and was forced to vacate the country.

Gandhiji's contributions to this country are uncountable and we can never thank him enough for what he did for us.The air of freedom this country has been breathing for the past 63 years is attributed to the painstaking efforts of Gandhiji and other great freedom fighters the history has witnessed.Writing a few lines about his legacy is a sheer injustice to him,but at least it made me remember him differently today.Maybe someday I will be qualified enough to write about him and remember his pious soul in a way that will do justice to his existence.In the end I would like to quote a famous saying by Gandhiji:"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."