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A century after Gandhi

 Mahatma Gandhi belonged to the 20th century. He was arguably the saint of that century. 76 years ago, on this very day - 30 Jan - he was assassinated brutally by a misguided and perverted ideology which, unfortunately, has laid siege to contemporary India, thereby assassinating the spirit of Gandhi again and again. 

Allow me to present a few images here on this death anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. These images have little to do with Gandhi himself. But they have much to do with what he was trying to teach the world about things such as development without heart, greed without limit, craze for power and self-aggrandizement, political chicanery...

The rich and powerful have all the goodies and buddies. The poor are plundered of everything, even their food. When a few choose to live life kingsize, the majority get trampled under their boots. [The images may have little to do with Gandhi directly, as I've already said. Nor with India per se.]



Two faces of religion in the Mahatma's Land. The new devotee and the new High Priest. 



The above is the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning picture taken by journalist Kevin Carter. A starving child in strife-ridden Sudan. Carter committed suicide later. "I'm really, really sorry," his suicide note lamented. 

We all have reasons too many to be sorry today... Let us, at least, keep alive the memory of the Mahatma in our hearts. Maybe, we can still light a candle while the darkness is engulfing us. 

And let me end with just two more images. 







Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJanuary 30, 2024 at 6:30 AM

    Hari Om
    That last is offensive, heh na? Not a patch, no, not even a thread resembling the original. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liz A.January 30, 2024 at 6:39 AM

    You'd think we would have been able to figure out how to fix the things he pointed out. Sadly, those in power don't want those things fixed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. magiceyeJanuary 30, 2024 at 7:19 AM

    Doing what he loves doing best, spinning tales to his devotees!

    ReplyDelete
  4. TheMoon'sBOYFRIENDJanuary 30, 2024 at 8:47 AM

    I feel bad for Kevin, to let all that pain rein on himself. People critiqued about him not helping the kid, well where these people before and it wasn't his fault for the world being like this.


    Of course a part of us will feel bad for the kid and for him leaving, he was only human, he may not have realized the gravity of things that would rile him down.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CareenaJanuary 30, 2024 at 11:00 AM

    The kevin Carter image is haunting and the aftermath of it even more so. But the last image speaks volume. The PM looks like he's having trouble sitting in that position, rightly so, its not easy to sit where the Mahatma did...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousFebruary 5, 2024 at 9:31 PM

      Kevin wasn't at fault, he had some mistakes of his own but the main issue was that He wasn't allowed to touch anything foreign there as it might bring in any diseases, He indeed did shooed away the eagle and the food centre wasn't quite far, later sources suggest it was actually a bit and he indeed did survive, The fault of Kevin was that he didn't inform authorities about the child crawling and waited for 10-20minutes keeping the child in vulnerable position just to get that perfect shot , But the photo did bring out much donation and raised issues of incoming threat to other countries ,

      Delete
  6. marietta pereiraJanuary 31, 2024 at 2:24 PM

    A sorry state of affairs indeed which seems to be getting worse with each passing day. The image of the starving child tells it all.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rajeev MoothedathFebruary 3, 2024 at 8:47 PM

    A disturbing post... With no immediate answers .

    ReplyDelete

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