Campus, Masti & Gandhigiri

What relevance, if any, does Gandhi Jayanti have for the younger generation – apart from the fact that it’s a holiday? Indeed, keeping aside Lage Raho Munna Bhai, does Gandhi have any connect whatsoever with Gen i? On the face of it… naah. But then, what explains the fact that of all Indians, Gandhi is probably the one on whom you can find the most T-shirts with funky and humourous messages and sketches – and this isn’t Khadi Bhandar stuff we’re talking about. Just take a walk through CP or drop into the nearest mall, chances are that the section offering cool, funky T-shirts with assorted varieties of messages will have one political leader’s face on it – and the chances are very high that it will be Gandhi. We sent a DT team to spend an hour in CP to search and they returned with an assortment of half a dozen tees with Gandhi on them, without breaking into a sweat. Now, if you have these tees being sold, someone is buying them. And that someone is in all probability part of the younger age group that we don’t really think finds Gandhi cool – or do they? After a photoshoot – the one on page 1, with everyone sporting a funky Gandhi tee – we chatted up a group of first year DU college students to take this question forward… So, why is Gandhi cool? There’s an assortment of voices. “He stands for what is not being done, what many people think is different…” “He’s a symbol of what should be done. He represents what’s different from what most people think and do today.” But what did he represent? India doesn’t even have many memories of the young Gandhi – statues of the young Gandhi are in South Africa while the only visual image we have is of the bespectacled, walking stick-holding statues across the country