Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tea with Gandhi's Granddaughter

Tara was only 14 when her grandfather died, but when she spoke of him, you would never know that over 50 years had passed. Her stories of him and with him are so vivid and clearly hold great importance to her. She actually called herself the most illiterate of the family, because rather than study other people's interpretations of Gandhiji, she uses her memories of him to make sense of who he was and how he thought.

When talking about the separation, what Gandhi above all strived to achieve although he did not agree with partition ,
she shared that eventually he agreed that there was going to be more bloodshed without it. But then she spoke of the terrorism that was present in pre-independent India and how it ensued post-independence. The terror she spoke of, though, wasn't the terrorism we think of. It was the terror of going to sleep hungry, having hungry children, or the terror of being lonely.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Bhattercharjee for a short time, but her presence was generous and full of love. We all speak the same language, the language of heart.

1 comments:

A. K. said...

Love your blog! Keep posting

my homies

me

two + years in india have changed my life in so many ways. it has taught me much about what more there is to see of the world, and reminded me of how much wonderfulness i have in my life because of people like you, who read this. thanks for still logging on and sharing in my adventures.
om shanti.

My Blog List

  • Poem of the day - COULD HAVE It could have happened. It had to happen. It happened earlier. Later. Nearer. Farther off. It happened, but not to you. You were saved because y...
    11 months ago
  • One Day - So, I was inspired over the Winter break by one of the books that I read, One Day. It follows the relationship of a couple over the course of 16 years or s...
    1 year ago
  • Moss, Lime and Kiwi - kim_sagami_7149, originally uploaded by fan of mutts. So it’s been forever—foreva eva—since my last post. The only major update since then? I now know LEED...
    2 years ago
  • Varanasi - From Lonely Planet-- Few places in India are as colourful, charismatic or spiritual as the bathing ghats lining the Ganges in Varanasi. The city of Shiva i...
    3 years ago