When I had gone to spend time
with the Narmada bachao Andolan in the 1990s. I was also going around
the Gujarat villages with a friend who was with AKRSP then. We went to one
village and met a Salimbhai and Mehr-un-nissaben.
Salimbhai had grown in that
village. His father had asked Gandhiji for a plan for himself, and Gandhiji had
told him to settle in a village and work there. He did that and his son Salim
was born there and grew up there.
Salimbhai asked to see my hand
and pressed it and shook his head. He held out his rough hand to me. In a
gesture, rooted in goodness, he indicated that the hard work of a lifetime
indicated by a gnarled palm versus the softness of the palm of a privileged
upbringing. And the deep significance of the Mahatma’s bread labour was
conveyed in silence.
He asked me if I had read ‘Ivan
the Fool’ of Leo Tolstoy. I hadn’t. He advised me to.I read it later … and the rein
that story gave to the imagination of possibilities … of another world.And my gratitude to Salimbhai
remains eternal.
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