Click to play videoIt’s arguably the comeback of the millennium. Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, is once again taking centrestage in popular culture through the medium of the masses.
In the run-up to his birth anniversary on October 2, CNN-IBN discovers the relevance of Gandhi in our times and understands the reasons behind the phenomenal rediscovery that he has been for Generation Next.
Mumbai: Mainstream cinema experimented with Gandhi for the first time in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi that made for considerable commercial success.
But popularising Gandhi and his principles in the present day and age was made popular by director Rajkumar Hirani who followed Mahatma’s steps and reinvented Gandhism as Gandhigiri in Lage Raho Munnabhai.
Hirani's “Experiments with Truth” had the winning formula and the director able to pull the icon out of history books with a humourous ease.
The Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi-starrer seems to have captured everyone's imagination and literature on Mahatma's life are fast becoming best-sellers.
"We constantly wanted to say that we need to modernise Bapu because the image of Bapu is that of an old man in a dhoti and a stick and people probably laugh at him now. So we wanted to say that he is a great man but wanted to say it in a way so that the youth could connect with it," says Hirani.
Getting under the skin of the Mahatma is a challenge film directors seem to love.
Add to that his troubled personal relationship with his family and they get a real-life drama tailor-made for cinematic expression, as seen in Feroz Khan-directed Mahatma vs Gandhi.
"Here was a huge conflict. A conflict of principals and Kasturba (Gandhi’s wife) was caught between the two. It was a deep pain that Gandhi carried, here was a Gandhi who carried that pain and the audience could understand that,” Khan says.
While popular culture iconised him in films like Gandhi, it also humanised him in films like Shyam Benegal-directed Making of the Mahatma.
"What was it that made him the Mahatma? What is this lodestone that he carried, that made him the person he was? That is what fascinated me,” says Benegal.
A dramatic life, a most tumultuous political career and complex personal relationships, it’s certainly no real surprise that Gandhi makes for engaging cinema and theatre.
But what does pleasantly surprise is the ease with which he has gone pop.
The Modern Mahatma |
Cinema |
 1982: Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough starring Ben Kingsley in the title role. |
| 1993: Gandhi is portrayed by Anu Kapoor in Sardar which is about the life of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. |
| 1996: The Making of the Mahatma starring Rajat Kapur, is a film about Gandhi's 21 years of life in South Africa. |
| 2000: Hey Ram, made by Kamal Hasan portrays a would-be assassin of Gandhi and the turmoil of post-partition India. Gandhi is played effortlessly by Naseeruddin Shah. |
| 2006: Gandhism is a central theme of Deepa Mehta-directed Water. Gandhi appears at the end of the film. |
| 2005: Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara shows the dilemma of a Gandhian in the modern day and age. Starring Anupam Kher as the staunch Gandhian. |
| 2006: Gandhi, portrayed by Dilip Prabhavalkar, is the central character in Lage Raho Munnabhai. |
| Parodies |
| A gun-toting Gandhi is shown briefly in a parody trailer for Gandhi II in comic flick UHF. He is described as "No more Mr. Passive Resistance". |
| Gandhi is referred to in an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld, "The Old Man", as having had an affair with a senior citizen. |
| Stage |
| Mahatma vs Gandhi explores his troubled relationship with his eldest son Harilal Gandhi |
| Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy (Marathi: I am Nathuram Godsé speaking) explores the circumstances in which Gandhi's murder was plotted and carried out. |
| The opera Satyagraha, composed by Philip Glass (in 1980), with a libretto by himself and Constance De Jong is based on the life of Gandhi. |
| Video games |
| Mahatma Gandhi has been featured in the video game series Civilization, as a civilization leader of the Indian Civilization. He has appeared through the first three Civilization games as a lone Civilization leader, but in Civilization IV, Gandhi is a civilization leader alongside Asoka, the famous Indian Emperor. (Source: Wikipedia) |
(With inputs from ibnlive.com)
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)
More on IBNLive Right Now
TOP NEWS
MOST SHARED
PHOTOGALLERY
