When Amravati-based Alok Mishra visits his home town Jhansi, he ensures that he meets his great grandfather Thakurdas Swadeen’s friends and followers. Swadeen was one of the noted freedom fighters of Jhansi who was incarcerated many a time along with Mahatma Gandhi.

Mishra has also been credited with the discovery of some rare audio recordings of the Mahatma’s historic speeches, dating back to the late 30s and early 40s. Doordarshan will be telecasting these recordings as part of its Mahatma project. Early this year, Mishra had responded to an advertorial publised by Doordarshan in the leading newspapers, asking people to send in any old archival history on the Mahatma. Mishra, who sent in the CDs, has received a letter from Doordarshan director of archives Kamalini Dutta, confirming that the priceless speeches will be part of the project.

“My early childhood was spent listening to stories about the Mahatma from my great grandfather. My favourite anecdote is the trial of my great grandfather by a British lawyer when he was arrested for spreading the teachings of Gandhi. To every answer, the lawyer kept saying ‘you are a liar’, to which he simply quipped — a man who wears a Gandhi cap can never lie,” says Mishra, who is a mechanical engineer in Pune.

Mishra was also introduced to many freedom fighters who had worked closely with the Mahatma in his childhood and he had kept contacts with them later on. “In 2007, I got a call from a family I knew who wanted to know if I am interested in some gramophone recordings that they were planning to discard. Curiosity took me all the way to Jhansi from where I got the records. Many of them were in bad condition.”

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