Gandhi…and Munna…and me?

On Saturday, I had gone to see Lagy Raho Munnabhai (finally). And the movie, in addition to leaving me impressed, left a lot of random strings of thought, and questions in my mind. Let me try to share them.

The movie, on a broad front, tackles two issues. One is the fast fading principles of Gandhi. It seems that the only memory of bapu is left(as very correctly said in the movie) on all those MG roads, on our currenct notes, on those Gandhi Parks…and on 2nd October, that is spoon fed into our memories along with 15 August and 26 january, as a national holiday. Gandhi jayanti…it is called. But how many of us actually ask why is it a national holiday?

Bapu is everywhere, but in our hearts. We have forgotten his principles, his way of life, his teachings. I had many a friends in college, who used to hate Gandhiji coz he moved around with two young ladies. What they never saw was that bapu tested his self-control by being with two women, yet not being attracted to them.

There used to be an ad-film, that was aired on Doordarshan a long time ago. It said ” The greatness of this man is his simplicity. ” And yet we are nothing but simple today.

The movie highlighted one of Gandhi’s favourite ways of protest, the satyagraha. A peaceful, non-violent way of protesting for your rights. And it does need a lot of guts, and willpower not to slap back when you are slapped. But does our generation believe in non-violence? No. We proudly call ourselves the RTB generation, where we do not believe in the power of non-violent protest. Or putting it in another way, we do not have enough patience to wait..wait for the result of our non-violent protest. The truthful path is always long, full of thorns, but victory is guaranteed. The path of violence, anger is always short..maybe you can win a battle or two, but you will always lose the war.

Will Lagey Raho….change our way of thinking? As much positive I want to be, I know that it will not. Because we have evolved into a very impatient generation. We want everything to happen quickly, waiting is a word not in our dictionary. And why should we wait, what are we going to get by waiting, is anyone ever going to listen? No…let us not wait, let us pick that brick, and throw it…whether the target is the police, or the house of our VC, or our own college for that matter. Why should we care?

Confused? No I am not changing the direction of my post. I am simply including those arguments that will come up against it. The question I ask is, why does no one listen? Not because they don;t want to, simply because they know that people will shout, take a protest march, make up for two minutes on the news and a day long breaking news on the ticker…and then fade away. They will listen if they are met with a bunch of protesters, who march non-violently, bearing the brunt of water cannons..but not giving up…day after day after day….

Let us accept it, we lack patience. When it be standing in a line outside the ATM when an old man is taking his time to withdraw money, we curse under our breath, but none of us volunteer to go in and help him out. When it be waiting in front of a red light( if we have stopped for it), we keep honking away to glory…You can just think of the last week in your life, and you’ll realize how impatient you as a person have become.

This was one. The other topic, that this movie very subtely addresses, is our faith on astrolgy, astrologers and horoscopes. We will not accept that we didn’t work hard enough in the office to get that promotion, but we will blame it on mars, venus or jupiter. How convenient. We will enforce irrationalities, taboos…things like being a manglik, or not being one. We will conveniently blame the planets and stars for all our problems, and think that adding that extra k will solve all our troubles.

Every day has a night. There are good times in life, and there are bad times. There always will be bad times. How do you expect me to appreciate light if I never know wat darkness is?

And yet, we believe in all this non-scientific mumbo jumbo. We believe that Ganesha idols can drink milk. We believe that wearing a gold ring with a pukhraj stone will bring us good luck.

What we don’t believe is, that truth, hardwork, determination are the only ways to succeed.

Can Lagey Raho…change the way we think? The way we act? Can it make us more rational, more patient and more determined people?

I have tried my bit to spread the word. Now I’ll request you, to spread the word, not only to others, but to yourself too. And as a mode of feedback, please let me know by commenting here how do you plan to do it. You can be completely anonymous…all I want is for you to write your committment down, and be firm on it.

I alone can’t make a big change to things around me, but I can change myself. Can you?