Click to play videoNew York: Mahatma Gandhi played baseball during a top secret visit to the USA in 1933—hold on! this is not historical fact but the fiction of a film.
Gandhi at the Bat shows the Mahatma playing for the New York Yankees, but US President Franklin D Roosevelt ensures that the trip is kept secret in national interest. However, long after the visit, baseball historians are intrigued by stories about a mysterious pinch hitter.
The film, touted as a mocumentary, has been made by Los Angeles-based Alec Boehm and Stephanie Argy and comes from the production house Mental Slapstick.
"It was a short story that was in the New Yorker magazine published in 1983. My co-directing partner Stephanie found the story in a book on great sports humour and she said, ‘we have to make a film of this,” Boehm said.
However, the story was based on a long lost news account of the incident so they decided to make it into newsreel that was only recently discovered.
The filmmakers plan to take the film to the festival circuit and it can also be found in the Web site www.gandhiatthebat.com
So we can now watch the Mahatma as he gets on the baseball diamond in sepia tones and flickering motion. And Gandhi, though in real history went to bat with great success for India. But, as a person with a great sense of humour, he probably would also have enjoyed the spoof.
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