Its been more than half a year since my last post, my longest absence from blogosphere and I blame none other than myself for the state of things. There were a lot of moments\events during the aforesaid time that I etched to voice my opinion, but facebook\twitter came to my rescue and I was content with my one-liners.
These days, I am growing increasingly fond of autobiographies specially by political personalities. L.K.Advani's '
My Country My life' was in my 'to read' list for a long time and hence when I subscribed to a library nearby, this book was my first choice.
However, these are the two other books, which I read after Mr. Advani's that I am going to write about today. These are Nelson Mandela's '
Long Walk to Freedom' and Gadhiji's 'M
y Experiments with Truth'.
Though, being an Indian, I was quite familiar with Gandhiji's philosophy,but about Nelson Mandela, I knew very little except that he was a great freedom fighter from South Africa who was awarded Nobel Piece Prize. It was with the intention to know the man better that I started reading his autobiography and I found myself glued to it till the very end. The last time, I remember reading a book so keenly was The
Da Vinci Code. The story of Nelson Mandela, if made into a movie, has the potential to be one of the most inspirational movies of all time. The man was in prison for three decades and still, the very day he came out, he championed the same cause for which he was jailed. How many of us would have done that after 27 years in jail ?
In that aspect, the story of Mandela is more humane than that of Gandhiji and hence more interesting. Gandhiji has had an aura around him and everyone who came near him was charmed by it, be it Indians or brits. Mandela had none, for he was a black. He won over his proponents and opponents by his hard skills.
Both were from well to do families in their respective communities. While Mandela belonged to family of tribal chief and was groomed to be a counsellor of the chief from his childhood, Gandhiji's father was the Deewan (Prime Minister) of Porabandar. Consequently, both of them had excellent education. Gandhiji went to England at the age of 21 to pursue his Law study while Mandela became one of the first black lawyers in his country (this was before his active involvement into African National Congress).
The similarities between the two end here as they took entirely different paths in different timelines of history.
While Gandhiji, propagated non-violence as a principle and an instrument of the brave people, Nelson Mandela used non-violence as a strategy and took arms when non-violence didn't seem to yield results. Gandhiji's strategy was simple and always the same, Truth and Non-violence.
Also, while Gandhiji believed in mastering the senses to achieve spiritual growth and had made the pursuit of truth his life-mission, Mr. Mandela's mission was Freedom from Apartheid and for that, he was ready to embrace any means. For example, when in Jail, he stole newspapers, told lie to authorities many a times and acted surreptitiously. Gandhiji, on the other hand was an open book throughout his life.
Mandela was more fond of sensual pleasures (he married thrice), whereas Gandhiji, took a vow of celibacy in 1906 and remained a celibate life-long since then.
Both these personalities inspire you in different way. Gandhiji gives you a better philosophical grinding which can safely take you through the darkest of hours, while Mandela inspires you by his deeds. Great souls do not come in a particular mould and hence its foolish to compare the two (which is precisely what I did :) ). Forgive me, for I was merely blabbering my thoughts.
