K A Viswanathan
On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Shanmukhananda Sabha had organized a dance drama “Mahatma Nrityanjali” by 150 students of Sri Raja Rajeswari Bharata Natya Kala Mandir, Matunga at the Sabha auditorium, The programme was
based on Gandhiji’s favourite devotional songs in Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil and Bengali, written by Rabindranath Tagore, Subramanya Bharathi and other famous poets. The governor of Maharashtra Shri Bhagat Singh Koshyari presided and Dr Anand
Gokani, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi was the Guest of honour. Guru Kalyana Sundaram Pllai, director of the Kala Mandir who is a torchbearer of the Tanjore tradition of Bharata Natyam, said among the dances “Vaishnava Janato” which was most liked by Gandhiji was staged by 15 students.
In his address, Dr Anand Gokhani said he was lucky to be born in the family of Mahatma Gandhi and he will try his best to live up to the ideals of his great grandfather. Gandhiji stood for qualities, ethics, value and morals and it is our duty to follow these and also to teach our children. “Gandhiji was a normal person as we all are.” But he had two things which we people don’t have – ram-rod spine and courage beyond measure. Gandhiji espoused the principles of civil disobedience with discipline, he said. “Truth was his destination and “ahimsa” was his humble path to reach the destination.”
These were the two main tools used by him to get India the freedom we wanted, Gokani said. There is a little bit Gandhi in all of us. He is present in the form of dormant principles we espouse, he said. Addressing the audience the governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari said not just Anand (Gokhani), we are all Gandhiji’s great-grandsons and daughters. But we are not great like him. We only have to follow his principles and follow his footsteps, the governor said.
