Gandhi, my father, my daughter

My interest and my understanding in Gandhiji’s philosophy and way of life had largely been triggered by Freedom at Midnight and then through his own ‘Satyagraha in South Africa’ finally culminating (for the present) in ‘the life of Mahatma Gandhi’ by Louis Fisher. All three have made great profound impact in my life. Layer that with the movie Gandhi that we must have seen umpteen times in childhood, and what I have is a vivid image in my mind about his life, mission, ideals and what not. I am trying to understand his ideals I am truly impressed with what he stood for.

I got my hands on the movie recently again. Yesterday I watched Gandhi with Jispa. Jispa (5 and a half) is normally quite sensitive and can’t even watch a Disney classic without being moved. She does not like sad animations. Violence in movies is just not her. Nevertheless when she came by my side, I let watch after warning her that this has a lot of fighting. She has learnt about Independence struggle in school so I guess she was curious.
I kept explaining to her what was happening. She followed a lot on her own. She kept encapsulating what she understood from the movie. The speech in South Africa declaring non violence as the chosen path. She kept counting the number of times he went to jail. Around four times I think (in the movie).I then tried to explain to her the defiance of the Salt act. I was explaining to her the importance of Salt. Funnily this was the first time she realized that mummy puts salt in all the food. She did not believe it at first. Mummy had to confirm the same to her. She realized the power of styagraha when the Indians bravely took the blows while trying to get to the salt pans. She saw jallianwalla baug as well. For a sensitive kid she did a lot of growing up. She was then completely freaked out when she realized that after Independence Indians were fighting amongst themselves. She knew Gandhiji taught not to fight and that is being more stranger than hitting back, but she did not know how to react when we Indians were fighting amongst ourselves.
In the end when Ghandhiji was shot she asked ‘who shot him? Was he a foreigner’, no I replied. “he was an Indian?” “ya” I replied again. “why did an Indian kill Gandhi?” she always thought it was the British who beat him, jailed him and more or less hated him. “because he did not like him” I answered. “but I thought all Indians liked Gandhi”. “no sweetie, some didn’t. So he shot him”. “Gandhiji died?” she asked emotionally choked. “Ya” I was choking my self. We looked at each other, half choking half holding back tears. We both tried a brave smile, looking at each other for support. We were actually supporting each other. Jispa grew up a bit, I grew up a bit. It was a truly special moment for me.
Trivia - I first understood the power of Gandhi from my dad. I remember having a long conversation with him on non violence before I was converted.