Smile Please Bapu

Dear Bapu,

Wishing you a belated Happy Birthday.

You must be wondering with all that is happening down below, how can anyone in his right senses wish you ‘Happy Birthday’. Surely the intolerance, the violence, the schism and the all-pervasive corruption have reduced ‘We, the People’ to the Three Monkeys made famous by you. Today we are blind to see the evil happening; we are deaf to the preaching of brotherhood and have turned mute to raise our voice against injustice. Yet I wish you Happy Birthday for I happened to visit Sabarmati Ashram a couple of days ago and let me tell you Bapu there are still many a good thing happening there for which you can smile even now.

Smile Please, Bapu

Normally every visitor goes to Hridayakunj where you lived and where all your things are preserved so well and to the museum with pictures, books and mementos to pick from. But this time I saw more. My first step was in the campus of Vinay Mandir, a residential school for girls from underprivileged sections of society. The school has about 300 girls from class 9^th to 12^th standard. As I entered, I saw a couple of peacocks roaming around. What a welcome, Bapu, even you would feel good. The school is kept so neat and clean and there was pin drop silence around. A visit to the residential section showed how well these girls are kept in spick and span rooms with bunk beds and reading tables for all. We met the matron who has been around for the last 35 odd years and another alumnus who passed out of the school in 1962. We are happy that we selected this school as part of our CSR program to build a computer lab for the children and it should be operational in the next few months. Plus there is also a Primary Teachers’ Centre here where I found these beautiful unifying lines which, if we all were to believe like you, then surely a lot many problems would be solved today. Education for girls and unity of people…..Are these not what you wanted? Then smile please, Bapu.

My next visit was to another school in the Ashram complex. Here about 150 children are taken care of with books and food while their parents work in the city doing menial jobs. What caught my attention was the cheerful way they would greet. They would raise their right hand up, shake their fingers in a trembling fashion and sing aloud…Namastey. The smile on their faces was enough for me to conclude that the children of the lesser gods are well taken care of. And Bapu you will be happy to know that they have even made a computer room here which they have named as ‘In- Tell- Actual- Class’!  When I saw this, I smiled and I know Bapu you too would seeing this classroom and the door outside from up there…then why don’t you smile please, Bapu?

Dear Bapu, you always told people about cleanliness. Still remember you scolding Ba ,when in South Africa ,asking her to clean the toilet…surely you too would have seen Attenborough’s biopic on you…we Indians failed to make a good movie on you. It needed a man from those you forced to leave India for our Independence to understand you, your philosophy and do justice to the name, Mahatma…everyone saw it. Bapu, my father who would never go to the theatres also went to see it and cried while you were fasting at Noakhali. At your Ashram now there is a small workshop on various types of toilets…. and they have even built a toilet café where any place you sit is actually a commode below. Even the tables have things which even you might find difficult to eat seeing those holes there….but the fact is they are teaching in your home the need to have clean toilets….plus of course Swachh Bharat is also happening around. That surely must make you smile, Bapu.

My last stop was a small old building where Manav Sadhana, an NGO which teaches children crafts and games during the afternoon. But what caught my attention were the two gentlemen in the picture below. The man to the right is Surendra Bhai who for the last 32 years has been managing the Vinay Mandir and the man with the flowing beard is Jagat Bhai. Jagat Bhai came to Sabarmati Ashram like a visitor 19 years ago and he was so moved that he stayed behind and now teaches craft to underprivileged kids during the day. He says that the children come from such difficult backgrounds that we cannot imagine but when they play and smile, they forget all miseries and he finds his solace. With such good men around, Bapu, you need to smile more often…incidentally it is here that I found your best picture, smiling with your grandson….see I told you that you would definitely smile today, Bapu.

Modernity has also touched your ashram Bapu. The whole place is Wi-Fi connected and the riverside of Sabarmati now looks very beautiful. Take a look Bapu and I am sure you too will be forced to smile.

Bapu, I am signing off and you will wonder how my letter will reach you…LOL Bapu…you were the original rock star and see how letters would reach you then…surely mine too shall reach you, Dear His Excellency Mahatma Gandhi.

Yours Respectfully,

SS