The body of
one of the giants of world cinema has perished but his spirit would live on
forever through his films.
To say that
Mr. Richard Attenborough was a spectacular actor and brilliant film maker would
be stating the obvious.
People have
written books about his great body of work so I wouldn’t even attempt to commit
a felony by summarizing his immeasurable genius in few sentences.
But rather I
would write about how he introduced me to a lawyer named Mohandas K Gandhi.
I was born in
the hometown of Mahatma Gandhi. I studied in the city of Rajkot where once, little
Mohandas studied. And I went to London where young Mohandas once went for further
studies.
To be honest
my impression of that little brown man in loin cloth and a bamboo stick wasn’t
that great. I mean okay, he gave us Indians independence, but so what, we would
have got it anyway, someday.
Then in my
initial years in Glasgow I happened to stumble upon a DVD of GANDHI, a film by
some fellow named Richard Attenborough.
I am ashamed
to say but at that time neither was I inclined to know about Gandhi nor did I know
who this Attenborough fellow was. I only picked it up because the film was
nominated for 11 Academy Awards.
And then I
watched the film to kill time on a lazy summer weekend but instead it killed my
ignorance.
Could a film
be made this good? Was it really a film or a documentary? And most important of
all how could I have been so stupid not to have known, Mahatma Gandhi, the
giant mankind had produced in past millennium.
Next thing I
did was to buy the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and started watching everything
and anything done by Mr. Richard Attenborough.
It took Mr.
Richard Attenborough 20 years to complete the film because no one wanted to
invest money in a film about an Indian guy in loincloth fighting British with
non-violence, and that too directed by a British film-maker. But He never gave
up. And like they say, rest is history.
Thank you Mr.
Richard Attenborough for living your life the way you did.
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