On Saturday, October 3rd 2015, the India Discovery Center-a non-profit organization in Boston dedicated to researching, preserving and sharing India’s cultural history, celebrated “Gandhi Jayanti” in Lincoln, MA.

The event commenced with opening remarks by Dr. Bijoy Misra which was followed by Gandhiji’s favorite bhajan “Vaishnav Jan To” melodiously sung by Mrs. Preeti Nagar accompanied on manjira by her husband Mr. Prem Nagar.  The audience joined in to sing, which helped set a perfect mood for the afternoon.  The bhajan written by the 15th century  poet Narsinh Mehta in the Gujarati language, speaks about the life, ideals and traits of a Vaishnava (devotee of Vishnu). The group discussed the essence of the bhajan and acknowledged the characteristics of a “Vaishnav” as depicted in the poem to be cherished by a noble man.

Next, was a short informative talk by Prof. C.Gopinath on the life of Gandhiji.  His talk was thought provoking and shed light on some interesting specifics like, Gandhiji as a ‘late bloomer’ (his Dandi march was at 61 years), collecting data from villages during the march (socio-economic analysis) and Sabarmati ashram run as an organized camp.  He spoke about the relevance of Gandhiji’s principles of truth, peace and non-violence in today’s world. This was followed by sharing of some more aspects of Gandhiji’s life by the other members of the group.

Mr. Chandu Shah spoke about the life of young Gandhi who indulged in worldly pleasures but how an ordinary young man transformed himself to be Gandhi as we know him today. The group reflected on this aspect of Gandhiji’s life and briefly discussed his transformation from an average youth to a deeply spiritual man.  Next, Mr. Ravi Teja drew the group’s attention to a not-so-pleasant issue of Gandhiji’s life-the relationship with his son Harilal. The question Mr. Ravi posed was, how can a person who fought for justice be unjust to his own son? The group deliberated on this facet, and attributed the cause of the failed relationship to Gandhiji’s flaw of believing he was right in family matters. Mr. Alok De augmented the point further, by relating the incident where Gandhiji threatened to walk away from the Indian National Congress with his supporters in 1939, after Gandhiji’s candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya lost the election to Subhash Chandra Bose. Dr. K. Subbaraman then steered the group’s focus with the observ
ation that Gandhiji with all his limitations was still a man to be revered with utmost respect and while we memorialize him, we need to reflect on what we can learn from him. Present in this group was a truly blessed person, Dr. M. P. Singh, who recounted his experience of seeing Gandhiji. Mr. Sanjeev Tripathi touched on Gandhiji’s work on sarvodaya, the common person’s upliftment.  Then Mr. Chandu Shah read “not so known” facts of Gandhiji from his well curated collection. To end the discussion, Dr. Misra aptly summarized the group sentiments by saying that, “Gandhiji was a man who was not afraid to experiment.  At times his experiments might not have yielded the results, but those did not deter him from further experimentation.  He called them ‘experiments in truth.’  He followed the message of the Gita and applied it in his life.”

Subsequent to this, there were selected readings by Ms. Chandrika Govardhan and Ms. Swati Dave from Gandhiji’s autobiography. The event concluded by another of Gandhiji’s favorite soulful bhajan “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram”.  All participated and there was a short concluding discussion.  A social hour with snacks and tea followed.

The short 90-minute event proved to be a wonderful prelude to a bigger event planned by the group on “Centenary of Gandhi's Freedom Movement in India” on October 16 – 17th at Regis College, Weston MA.  For free registration and program details of this event,  

Please visit: http://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org/

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