I sank into the cushioned seat of what I considered an impressive modern cine theatre compared to the norms some 27 years ago. I could not help looking around until the lights went off and the show began : “Gandhi”, the film of your life. I then, for more than two hours, forgot all notions of time, being so engrossed in that extraordinary character of yours.

Though I was hardly a teenager, I was impressed by your non-violent ways, your deep love of truth, justice and humanity. You were indeed a paragon of virtue who fully deserved the name of Mahatma. Throughout your life, you wore a pristine heart, which refused to compromise with cruelty. As a child, you argued with your mum when asked to stop playing with sweeper boy Uka. You fought the evils of casteism and racism throughout your life. Those they called the untouchables, you called harijans, children of God !

You abhorred untruth. Do you remember the day you wrote that confession to your dad after having stolen a piece of gold under the ill influence of your brother Sheik? You felt so relieved that you burst into tears. Your then ailing father only sighed, he had fathomed the depth of your heart! Truth remained your second skin. In this world of illusions and treachery you showed satyagraha (truth force) was stronger than masks.

Yes Moniya, you were an exceptional child who preferred reporting your brothers’ mischief rather than showing the slightest sign of violence and you were so affectionate and pampered by your mum that she was reluctant at the idea of you leaving India for studies. She feared England would steal your values but England only broadened your horizons. You opened your heart to all cultures “but refused to be blown off your feet by any”.

Knowing that “an eye for an eye would make the world go blind”, you stayed faithful to ahimsa,(non-violence). Together with civil disobedience based on satyagraha, it was transformed into a powerful weapon, which shook the British Empire, restituting the jewel of its crown back to the Indian people.

You differed from other children in your passion for reading and thirst for knowledge. As a brilliant lawyer and great thinker, you however believed that an “education, which does not teach the difference between good and bad, to assimilate the one and eschew the other” is a “misnomer.” Considering our troubled, yet increasingly educated world, which favours academic training over a moral and religious one, your opinion is most compelling.

Like most children, you preferred playing to fashion and later never bothered about wearing smart or fashionable clothes. You believed it created difference among people. This humility which made your strength, solicited admiration and irritation but never passed unnoticed. You were the ”half-naked fakir” for Winston Churchill and “great man” for Captain Jan Smuts who, on wearing the pair of sandals you stitched in gaol, confessed to feeling “unworthy of standing into the shoes of so great a man”!

Like a child you loved humanity, refused to label its maliciousness on colour grounds but rather fought the evil in man. You made no difference between genders, rising up against women’s segregation and “morbid anxiety about female purity”. Though you married at 13, you disagreed with the custom of child marriage because, having yourself played with Kasturbhai during your fist years of marriage, you knew that childhood is a time unfit for adult responsibilities.

Though you were against unfair commercial competition, you were not against business and believed the customer to be the “most important visitor in our premises”.

You would never know how proud I am that a man of your calibre stayed in my country and changed the lives of its people by sending a Manilall Doctor.

I imagine you might want to come back to earth to continue the fight but you deserve to be where I believe you are, in paradise. You can be sure your legacy will inspire many, like Martin Luther King, for the years to come. Yet we must ensure we pass it on to our children...

<B>Alain JEANNOT</B>