Join the Final Journey of the Mahatma

As the parched earth waited hopefully for the arrival of the rains, the four of us set forth on a journey of hope – Sudeesh took up his camera, Murali his sketchbook and pencil, Gopi his notebook and pen, with Prasoon following on with his video camera and tripod.

We were retracing the  footsteps of an exceptional  man, the kind that’s born once in a millennium.

With its plentiful ponds, labyrinth of waterways,  small dusty roads snaking from village to village, rickety bamboo bridges, modest houses made of tin sheets and a people with warm smiles, Noakhali stretched out before us. Seventy-eight years had passed but the memories were still fresh.

As we passed through the open gates of the Gandhi Ashram Trust in Joyag, Gandhi touched us. He spoke to us through the various people we met as we followed his path. In the sleepy hamlet of Sreerampur, from the small hut made of tin sheet, we heard an anxious voice of self-doubt. Ahimsa will not fail, but will I, as its practitioner?

In Bihar, the abandoned mosque rose majestically from the fields and spoke of its heydays, but we could also hear the wail of its  stifled call to prayer.

At Shanti Niketan, the Gandhi treading on a skull caused us to shudder, as Ramkinkar must have. Binod Behari offered hope. At the museum on the banks of Ganga in Barrackpore, at the Birla House where Gandhi fell, at the same bar in Marina Hotel where Godse’s friends ordered their whisky…we walked through layers of history.

Seasons changed and we saw how light had seeped in even in the dark times; how the song had continued. This journey has filled us with hope and hope transcends time and space.