Hi gandhi's new biography by his grandson tells of his attraction to a bengali woman. it needed a lot of persuasion from other leaders like rajaji to ged rid of that fatal attraction.
i guess he came very close to ejecting kasturiba from his life.
This was there as an article in India Today or some other famous English magazine about this. Baring a few politicians the personal life of others -- Less said the better. In my humble opinion - Personal life of personalities is not worth discussing in this forum where we discuss other useful things.
Today's politicians -- Ha haa ... You must be joking. I don't want to degrade the Freedom Fighters by comparing todays politicians in their plane. I am talking about Freedom Fighters about whom its written in Freedom at Midnight. Gandhi was in love with a married Bengali Woman, whose husband was also a freedom fighter and when this affair was in peak the Bengali husband was serving sentence in jail (If my memory is not mistaken thats what I read in the article) Idhu yenna perumaya?
If I start quoting the Freedom at Midnight then many will feel that its vulgar. So let them read the book and get to know more about the leaders which includes Mahatma Gandhi Ji / Pandit Nehru Ji / Saradar Patel ...
People say we should learn lessons from the life of GREAT PEOPLE. What do the younger generation learn from such acts of GREAT PEOPLE? When these kind of things happen in the life of great people then people say we should learn not to do all this in our life. But when it happens in common man's life we call it as perversion / maniac.
I don't think there is anything wrong in discussing a celebrity's personal life as long as we are not doing any 'yellow journalism' here, meaning deliberate intention to malign someone should not be there. Udanx, we are all adults, not children, and most people know how to write as far as i can see. As a woman i take no disrespect to the nature of such discussion as long as people know how to say what they say that is all.
I have not heard of any Bengali woman in GAndhi's life although not read this book yet. I do know for a fact that Ba had an extremely hard time with him, he treated her almost like a servant many times and it took many years for him to acknowledge her as a true person. It may also be due to the general nature of treatment of women in those days but it does not excuse his behavior.
I gave a talk on GAndhi a long time ago for a class on indian cultural awareness and was asked in a forum of over 300 people, mostly whites, what did I think of GAndhi's experiments with celibacy. I said like anyone else that he was human and all that he did was not right, I don't agree with what he did in that regard and I believe it was due to his regard and adoption of the christian belief system in selective ways that led him to it.
First of all Good morning Malati. What's the time now out there in US? Early in the morning even before you brush your teeth you open up PS group mails and start replying to the discussion which took plavce when you were fast alseep or what? Kidding. Don't take it seriously!
VJ,
For records -- Bengali woman in Gandhi's life is not mentioned in Freedom at Midnight. It was there in a English Weekly (India Today or something like that, not sure of the book).
I am in the middle of my mid year appraisal and I have to list what and all I have done in the past 6 months. Being active in PS and 6 other Yahoo! groups will not be counted as my achievements. So scratching my head ... Will be back with a bang on this on Monday.
Tonite I will be traveling to Chennai to attend my cousins wedding. Will be there till Friday and then weekend @ Home sweet home - Dindigul. Monday back to office -- To write about Gandhi Ji ... Oops I need to work also ... Chalo people catch you later.
Gandhi Ji .... I will come back ....
~ Udanx
*PS: SPS, Next 2 days I will be in Madras Any PS meeting happening so that I can also contribute (By eating the Adayar Anandha Bhavan Seedai / Murukku which people use to talk about) Yenakku illa yenakku illa (Read it in Dharumi Style Film Tiruvilayaadal) *
This article has very good summary of Gandhi and Saraladevi, I had no idea the Bengali woman was her, she was Tagore's niece and known feminist of that era. I asked my uncle who is a Gandhian and avid collector of all books on Gandhi and he sent me this. It is very informative on conflicts and personal challenges, also has Rajaji's golden words to Gandhi which would make sense in any age and era.
Udanx, if Bharatiar lived nowadays he would have written kaalai ezhunda vudan email... :) I check email twice once in the morning with tea and once evening.
Good luck with your mid year review, those are always a pain :)) I had a dream yesterday that we are setting up a PS bookshop with donations and you donated all your mom's collections :))
Online email check kooda old barathiyar kalam... ippo ellam mid nite black berry browse :-)
As far as the other woman, a blip can be blown out of proportion, as far as Gandhi is concerned, his +ives out weigh his -ives. Yes, he has had some bad judgements and decisions, well, we were not a democracy then so had to follow a monarchial idea, just that in this case, the prime person was a peace lover.
Gandhi had done nothing memorable for his family, may be this is something he did so they can survive out of their skills of the pen. A scoop, most times, sells better than the truth. Every one has a last temptation, many brush it and move on, many dont recognize it for the entirity of their lives, but most humans are prone to temptation, the 'WWW' is a massive deception. I have read once that the only people who do not fall to temptation are those who do not get the opportunity or those who have crushed their senses, for all others its a fight, some win, some lose. Gandhi, according to me won. So..no hard no foul, hence my question is... so what if even he did?
I would not accept the lines of vairamuthu that...aangalil Raman kidayathu...punayil saivam kidayathu...Those who fight and win, land up in the path of Rama.
Only Rama could resist Surpanaka's charm, even the greatest of all Rishis such as vishwamitra could not.
Yes perhaps, but Gandhi was not Rama or Laxmana, he was a human like any of us who became great due to his conviction and strong sense of self. The point behind the stories such as this is not to idealise humans, or trash them for their frailities, unfortunately both of these extremes happen to be common in our country. Also not to forget the whole point is that Kasturba deserves no less credit than Gandhi, an oft forgotten fact - without her there would be no Gandhi and none of us justifying what he did one way or the other!!
Also just fyi, I do not know about all of Gandhi's progeny. I know for certain Arun Gandhi, one of his grandsons, is hardly a sensationalist. He runs a centre for peace in Memphis, and is a highly respected figure in public here in US. As for Rajmohan Gandhi, my uncle who knows much of the family mentioned him also to be a sincere person. The book is not a best seller by any stretch of imagination for him to rake in the money. He made mention of the incident perhaps to deal with the burden of hero worship and idealisation that plagues many celebrity families. (Lincoln's grandson even reportedly changed his last name to get away from it).
Remember Rama only tells surpanaka to approach Lakshmana. What if Rama had told Lakshmana to marry her, what would lakshmana do ?
Here is the real question however, Lakshmana had nothing for his own, he was a total dedicated bagawath seva candidate. Gandhi was different, he is neither under any command nor Rama.
On the scoop writing, it was a pun. Please do not think that I will think so low of a person in such high esteem. All said and done, Gandhi did leave some real great assets to his family - namely - his title and his morals, what more does one need. People like Gandhi clan recognize it, bharathiyar's could not... Unfortunately many people in today's world many people look to money as asiwaryam and money to be the asset.
'Guna seelam' - the real asset in today's world, the Rama way.
Ravi, 'title and morals' is often times more of a burden than we think, people expect you to live up to something all the time and that is a huge burden to carry for ordinary people. We should not really expect Gandhi's clan or Bharthiyar's clan to be like them or uphold something for us to feel good about, they are all ordinary people and celebrities rarely have time for their families.
Gandhi as a parent/father and as a freedom fighter are completely different personality aspects. If you read about what Kasturba Gandhi faced as a woman and a mother it would be very difficult to respect Gandhi. Since he believed his life was totally transparent it is sometimes unavoidable to not comment on those aspects.
SPS, my uncle sent me this book on Kasturba, written by her grandson Arun Gandhi and his wife Sunanda Gandhi. It is one of the best of her available, you may find it at Landmark or some bookstore there, if not I will be happy to bring a copy when I come.