October 2 is the Mahatma’s birthday, It is time to remember him and what he said.

ON AUGUST 15, 1947, the headlines of the Bombay (now Mumbai ) Edition of The Times of India read “Birth of India’s freedom”. On the same cover page a small box had also intoned “Mr Gandhi to fast today”. In the midst of an all-pervasive frenzied enthusiasm engulfing the city of Bombay, in hindsight, this act by the Mahatma may appear as a paradox. But we need to look at the construct of the great man. On August 15, Gandhi had marked the day with a 24-hour fast, prayer, and spinning yarn. “My way of celebrating great events, such as today's, is to thank God for it and, therefore, to pray,” he had written to his Quaker friend Agatha Harrison later. When C Rajagopalachari visited and congratulated Gandhi for restoring peace in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) where Gandhi was fasting, he said he will not be satisfied “until Hindus and Muslims felt safe in one another’s company and returned to their own homes to life as before.” Only a year ago in 1946, he had said “It is not the fast itself, but what it implies that matters”.

Gandhi firmly believed that “There can be no room for selfishness, anger, lack of faith or impatience in a pure fast....Infinite patience, firm resolve, singlemindedness of purpose, perfect calm, and no anger must of necessity be there. But since it is impossible for a person to develop all these qualities all at once, no one who has not devoted himself to following the laws of Ahimsa should undertake a Satyagrahi fast”.

Professor Nagindas Sanghvi had seemingly tried to explain the conundrum when he said that “Whilst He (Gandhi ) chose to call his biography “My experiments with Truth,” it is very difficult, if not impossible, to project Gandhi in few minutes. Sixty (nearly eighty now) years after his death, he still remains a sort of enigma. The flood of copious literature on Gandhi does nothing to solve the mystery”. The Professor was addressing Jewish Services Association. Madison [WIS.] US on “Understanding Gandhi” at Lechayim USA,

But Gandhi had said “My life is my message”.

The world today hails him as a Mahatma — a great soul — a Saint. Gandhi always resented the title and found it intensely painful. He never cared for any beatification and insisted that he was an ordinary man who was trying his level best for the realisation of the divine presence.

Gandhi was not born a saint but chiseled himself into one by intensely agonising experiments in austerity and discipline.

Unlike most of us, Gandhi continued to grow and change until the last moment of his life and he never worried about contradicting himself. “In my search for truth, I have never cared about consistency.” Like Emerson, he rejected consistency as the virtue of small minds. He was bold enough to proclaim that, “If my readers find any inconsistency in my views, they should reject the older ones and believe in the later as my views might have changed.”

Then why are we typecasting him now? We must find a meaning of his messages in the contemporary world. Some of his quotes are deep and profound and most likely to show the Gandhian way. I produce them for our benefit.

• “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning”.

• “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems”.

• “If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further”.

• “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it...always”.

• “I will give you a talisman…Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him”.

• “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves”.

• “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

• “Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it”.

• “It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result”.

• “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory”.

• “Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make, not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large”.

October 2 is the Mahatma’s birthday. It is time to remember him and what he said.