...he
that laboureth right for love of Me
Shall
finally attain! But, if in this
Thy
faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure!
–The
Song Celestial.
“For, as the lightning cometh out of the East,
and shineth even unto the West, so shall
also the coming of the Son of Man be.”
So spake Jesus. And, once again, and in our own
day, yet another streak of lightning came out of the East and shone ‘even unto
the West’, illumining the dark corners of the Earth,–flooding the hearts of men
and women with the light that never fades. Sweet Prince of Peace, lover of man,
friend and devotee of the Lord, Mohandas Gandhi is now among the Immortals.
To those of us who heard the Call seven-and-twenty
years ago,–and responded to it in the manner of the little squirrel that
brought a few grains of sand to build Sri Ramachandra’s great bridge to
Lanka,–the loss is intensely personal. Only a few weeks before the fateful 30th
of January, I wrote, in a reminiscent mood, of ‘the men who shaped my life and
outlook’. “Gandhiji,” I said, “is decidedly the most notable among them. But he
is distant and like a star in the high heavens.” It is distressing to think
that today he is in the high heavens and I can no more look on his dear form.
But the Star will shine on my path, even as it must shine through the ages and
be a light unto millions yet unborn.
I was always elated in spirit when I reflected
that, like Gandhiji, I was an ‘ex-lawyer’; elated too that, like him again, I
edited a journal. And when, on Independence Day, my brother journalists of
Mysore State did me the honour of inviting me to unveil a portrait of Gandhiji,
I felt it was the crowning reward of my life. I was never very close to him,
never referred to him as ‘Bapu’, never spoke with him, except briefly and on
rare occasions. And if my sorrow is so overwhelming, what shall we say of his
son Devadas, his heir Jawaharlal, Pyarelal, his secretary, and the companions
who shared his glory like the Knights of the fabled King Arthur!
Did the men of my generation in India–the men who
were at college when Gandhiji returned from South Africa and began his great
work for India and the world–deserve him? Were we worthy of the trust he
reposed in us? It is true we gave up our professions, faced poverty and
struggle, and courted imprisonment. But did we imbibe his gospel of
non-violence, of uttermost regard for truth and unflinching courage in the face
of Death? If we did, why was he snatched away from us so suddenly, shot by an
assassin who obviously claimed to represent a cause? Why was the Apostle of
Ahimsa marked out as a target for the most despicable type of violence? It is
clear we have not learnt, in all its implications, the lesson he came to
teach,–any more than the Jews of old learnt the lesson that Jesus sought to
give them. So let us search our hearts, purify our thoughts and emotions, and
then render homage to Gandhiji by becoming shining examples of Love, the love
that is fearless and asks for no return.
Poor Devadas! He took the ashes of his mother from
the Aga Khan’s Palace to holy Prayag, and in the train he felt as if he was
travelling with his mother. Now he travels with his father from Indraprastha to
the confluence of the three sacred streams, to immerse the precious relics in the
‘Triveni’. One thought grips me. The name ‘Triveni’ which has been
inexpressibly dear to me all these years, takes on an added significance.
‘Triveni’ which, to me, symbolises the meeting of Love, Wisdom and Power is
today further enriched by the mortal remains of him who always radiated these
supreme qualities of Love, Wisdom and Power, and thus pursued the three-fold
path of Bhakti, Jnana and Karma.
This is my incoherent, but loving and grateful,
tribute to the Father of the Nation. May the Nation become worthy of him!