Little known story of Mahadev Desai

A greatness of his own While many know him as Gandhi's secretary and translator of his autobiography, few have a real sense of the role Mahadev Desai played in the Mahatma's life. Venu Madhav Govindu finds an intimate and tender portrait of a man and his intensely lived life, in the Sahitya Akademi award winning biography by his son, The Fire and the Rose.http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/jan/rvw-firerose.htm

Memoirs of Manibhai Desai

The life of Dr. Manibhai Desai is of great inspirational value. He was but one of the hundreds of seeds that Gandhi sowed to leaven India. But he is unique in many ways. His is not a name that jostles with the likes of Patel, Nehru or Azad. Though he was of rural stock, he came from an affluent family and was a science graduate. He began his public life as an anarchist and only later embraced Gandhian ways. And when he did, he foreswore a personal life and plunged into the work that Gandhi set him. Despite that devotion to Gandhi, he was not an unquestioning disciple. As he built BAIF as a modern institution he displayed a flexibility that orthodox Gandhians tend to frown at. Manibhai Desai was indeed an exceptional Gandhian.http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/institutions/manibhaiDesai/preface.html

Truth, lies and effects

Through this article I want to show how lying actually does more harm to us than any good.The examples I am going to give are mostly found among to be used by youth between age of 18 to 23. I have lied many times untill I understood the harm they have done to me. Through this article it is my honest attempt to stop those whom I can from lying.

For students, lies can be broadly classified into

1] Lies to Parents
2] Lies to Teachers
3] Lies to Friends

Lets take the first point - Lies to Parents. Before that, I am sure that all of you will agree that the only goal of the student is to get educated and get as good results as the student can in examinations. The examples can be many but most common ones are (the ones I am guilty of)

1] Monetary lies to get more pocket money for various expenses

I used to live as a hostelite during my engineering days. As with most of the hostelites, my parents used to send me some money reularly for the living expenses. It was enough for accommodation, travel, food and miscelleneous expenses for education and entertainment. Somehow, I needed more money to cover some expenses which I could not tell my parents about. They were actually bad habits. I justified such action to myself thinking that my parents will feel bad and get angry. Living away from them gave me the liberty as far as time is concerned and by lying to them about the expenses, I was able to get money to indulge in so called 'cool' things. What I failed to realise at that time was that such acts will harm me in the long term in many ways. Not only they harm my health, I get habituated to it and then spend lot of time on it. Time vital for my studies which I could have used to get ahead in competition, score good marks and finally get a good job after I finished engineering. To be successful one needs to be strong and focussed on the job at hand. By lying, I actually harmed myself and my prospects in the future. It made me lie more (next examples)

2] Reasons for scoring less marks which actually is a direct effect of example 1.

The typical reasons that I used to give were sickness, power cuts, headaches etc. I failed once and I used sickness as the reason for it, but the reason was something else. I was not courageous to tell the truth. Again I failed to realise that this was the chance god had given me to correct my mistakes and if I told truth now, though my parents would get angry, I would get rid of the real reasons of my failure and I will get more focussed for producing good results. By lying now, I hid all my mistakes and though I got more careful about my studies, I still used to waste time in the similar activities. I did pass but not with good marks. Had I told my parents the entire truth, it would have given me strength to get rid of those activities and focus only on studies.

Second Point - Lies to Teachers I dont think I need to tell any of you about this as this is very common. We lie when we are late for lectures (train was late, bus was late, too much traffic, punctured tyre etc.) Well I dont say that it was not true all the times, but most of the times it was. We wanted to get away from the immediate reprimand, but we didnt think of the larger affect it would have on us.I remember an incident in first year of engineering. I liked Mechanical Engineering and I used to attend all the lectures of the subject. Once I was late for the lecture and I gave a similar reason. The truth was that I went to a late night movie and then got up late in the morning. Incidentally, the lecturer had seen us there and he knew the reason why I was late. He told the class the reason I was late but let me sit in the lecture. Later on he told me that he allowed me to sit as it was an important topic. When it came to submission of assignments, we again had a range of reasons of not completing them on time. We didn't care to submit the assignments on time and then on the last dates we used to ask for extension. These were the times for internal vivas and since we were not able to study for them, we used to lose marks and more importantly, we lose a chance of gaining knowledge which harms us even more in the longer run. The point I want to make is that lying to teachers might get us out of the immediate reprimand, but it makes our job difficult in the long term. A simple truth here would have given us strength to rectify ourselves. It would have given us the thirst for more knowledge and strength to finish the assignments before time and ask the teachers for improvements, or try some extra curricular activities.

Third Point - Lies to friends This I feel is the main reason for lies we tell in points 1 & 2.

We lie to friends about our social status, girlfriends, financial status, habits etc. And to give credibility to ourselves in our friends eyes, we indulge in all the things which make us lie to our parents and teachers. Lies to friends is primary reason why students pick up bad habits and in some extreme cases, it makes us steal. Obviously this is not what we came to learn.

The main point of the article that I want to make is that truth gives us strength and lies make us weak. In short term, lies might look like a tool to get away from an immediate reprimand, but we do not realise the harm it does to us in long term.

Lies might appear to do good, the good they do is temporary, but the evil they do is permanent.

First they ignore you..

See this add from Red Hat Linux.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_VFKqw1q2Q

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-- Mohandas Gandhi

Misdirected Intolerance

Yes, we all are guilty of misdirecting our intolerance. I will come up with examples of that, but before that, what I want to say here is that we should be intolerant towards injustice to anyone of us by us of by someone else. I will also try to show how our misdirected intolerance can have far reaching effects and how our intolerance for the right causes can change so many things.
We all blame the government for sorry state of affairs. Cleanliness, Traffic, Health and Safety, corruption, are the issues which affect us daily among others.
Gandhiji had said, "Be the change you want to bring in the world". And we all know that self governance is the first step towards good governance.
Let me come up with examples of Misdirected Intolerance where changing our habits is the best solution.

1] Stopping our vehicles right on pedestrian crossing

At traffic signals, if we want to cross, we obviously look for a pedestrian crossing (the zebra crossing, yes that one). How frustrated we feel when we see a vehicle standing on it blocking our way and we do not find any space to cross the road without putting our safety in jeopardy and then hurl abuses at the government. How many times I myself have done that while I used to be in engineering college, though towards the end of the college, I realized my mistake and changed myself. That line belongs to pedestrians and for god sake; it is only a 5 or 10 meters in width. It is not going to create any difference to the vehicle owners but keeping vehicles off it is going to help the pedestrians a lot. The problem arises when we forget while on or in a vehicle that we also are pedestrians sometimes and we hate it when some vehicle stands on it. I hope the reader respects, from next time onwards, the stop line and would stop just before the pedestrian crossing. Isn't it a very simple solution for everyone? We should be intolerant towards ourselves not respecting such facilities.

2] Not waiting for the green light to appear before taking off.

We have all done it and some of us do it even now. I am also guilty of this sin. But sanity says that it is very risky and 5 to 10 seconds wait for the light to go green is not going to do any damage. We often reason to ourselves and others that we would be able to save time by doing this, which we all know is not true and if we have to save time; we can start early rather than starting at our own stretch (Indian Stretchable Time). Frankly speaking, the risk in such an adventure/endeavor/habit is too high and can result in someone's death (maybe ours). And if we are able to avoid this, the traffic policeman can do the job he is actually supposed to do, that is manage the traffic and this will also help in improving our security situation.

3] Crossing the tracks

We are literates, aren't we? We know that crossing the tracks at the places where it is not manned or where there are other ways like over bridge available is illegal and risky. But with the intelligence we have (pun intended), we cross the tracks, the wrong way and at times face the music for this transgression! We are intolerant for the effort we need to make to climb the bridge which is incorrect. We should be intolerant towards ourselves crossing the tracks and we should insist at the least to people we know to not do the same.

4] When waiting outside the ATM.

We don't wait for the other person to come out, we enter as soon as his card is out of the machine and if he waits inside to read some brochure, he is an idiot and we have all the right to go in. Is it right? Obviously not! The person inside the ATM centre has not come to live there and he has the right to privacy and right to send the intruder to prison as well.

5] When littering everywhere

First thing the government should do is clean the roads. Look at Singapore, the roads are so clean, you will not find even a single piece of paper on the road. How many times have we said that, how many times have we blamed the government, when we all know that it is us who are to be blamed for littering on the road. We are intolerant towards the litter full streets but its very easy for us to drop anything that we do not need on the roads. We should be intolerant towards littering ourselves.

6] When eating at places where healthy practices of cooking food are not followed

We eat at those shoddy places and then blame the government for not keeping tabs on such places and in turn expect the government to come up with additional schemes like licensing etc. We all are educated; well enough to see that the cooking practice is not healthy in those places and even after all these we eat there just because it is cheap. Often this is the case that it leads to medical problems and it puts strain on the medical system of the country. We should be avoiding eating at such places and also ask others to follow the same. This has a lot of potential to solve many things including the illegal hawkers occupying the pavements, child labor other than reducing the strain on the medial system.

7] Waste of electricity and water

Nothing needs to be explained here I think.

8] Corruption.

I am living a corruption free life from 2003 onwards. I know it is difficult sometimes, but officials are corrupt because we give them a chance to be. As literates, it is very easy for us to find out the procedures and rules and if we are to change the system, we have to change ourselves first.

The examples could be infinite and the reader is invited to make his or her own observations and imagination. Self governance in such simple things can itself make a lot of difference to the nation. A nation is as good as its citizens.