Ba, the boy has branded us!

SOMEWHERE in heaven’s happy realms sat a familiar couple, the old woman busy spinning yarn on a little charkha imported from mother earth, her spouse poring over the ‘Heavenly Bugle’, the multi-edition celestial newspaper that promises to bring you all the news from the universe that fits the print.

By his side was his preferred beverage, a steaming glass of goat’s milk. As was his wont whenever he read the newspapers, the old man was in high dudgeon — nothing really seems to be going right in the beloved land he had left behind...

GANDHIJI: Ba, did you read this? They are making a mess down there. Violence, violence, violence. Only guns seem to be doing the talking there. They even have the army on the border. I can’t bear it, Ba, was it for this we struggled so hard? Was it for this that we waged our non-violent struggle?

KASTURBA: There you go again. Why you read the newspapers if it puts you in such a state is beyond me. We’re a retired now, Mohandas, let us at least now live in peace.

(But her husband was too absorbed in the newspapers to respond. He kept shaking his head, whispering ‘Hey Ram!’ to himself occasionally. Suddenly he gave snort and peered intently at what he was reading.)

GANDHIJI: I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it.

KASTURBA: What? Have they gone and exploded another nuclear device?

GANDHIJI (shaking his head): It’s that boy, Ba, that Tushar Gandhi. He attempted to sell me to an American company as a brand name. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

KASTURBA (snatching the newspaper from him and reading the item): Little Tushar, our great-grandson, ah yes, the one in Mumbai. Such a sweet little boy he was. How I laughed from up here when I watched him eat his puri and aam ras as a toddler. He’d get himself all covered with the aam ras! Yes, and he’s the one who immersed your ashes, remember, that bit that was kept in an urn in some bank?

GANDHIJI (sternly): You have not changed, Ba, not one bit. After all those years of struggle, you are still fixated on your family. I don’t care what he did for my ashes, I still find it reprehensible that any kin of mine can even think of selling me for 50,000 dollars. There are 54 of my descendants down there, what if they all take to selling me like this?

KASTURBA (in a placatory tone): Now, Mohandas, the boy is well educated. All he wanted the money for was to rebuild our museum in Gujarat. Maybe he meant well.

GANDHIJI (with a snort): Meant well, meant well? That’s ridiculous. You know very well, Ba, that I have always believed that an education is of no value if it is not able to build up a sound character and Tushar shows no signs of a sound character, if I may say so.

KASTURBA: It says here that he only wanted to protect your name, Mohandas, so that it does not fall in the wrong hands.

GANDHIJI (snorting again): I have always maintained, Ba, that I do not want patronage as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty and you know it well. So don’t defend the boy, Ba, I will not countenance it.

KASTURBA (pragmatic as ever): There you go on, your old habit of getting yourself worked up into a frenzy over trifles. I thought when we came here you would at least relax a bit. But no. Anyway, the boy has now withdrawn from the deal, so why are you so worked up about it?

GANDHI: It’s the principle, Ba, morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality, as you yourself know so well. And the moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

KASTURBA: Come on, Mohandas, don’t be so hard on the boy. He may change you know, he’s still young. After all, wasn’t it you who said, to forgive is not to forget, the merit lies in loving...?

GANDHIJI (a small smile overtaking his visage): And you, Ba, are a wily old one. Quoting me back at me like this! But you are right, as usual. Anger is the enemy of ahimsa.

KASTUBA (stroking his back): That’s better. Drink up your goat’s milk and let me go back to my charkha. Come to think of it, Mohandas, at least this means that they still value you down there.

GANDHIJI: You know, Ba, what I want most of all is that my life remain an open book for everybody to own. People may not agree with me but if they read me I will be content.

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