Gandhi Journal Article-III ( May 2016 )
Gandhi on and in cinema
By Akul Tripathi
Today, 68 years after his death, what are the visuals that hit our mind when we hear the name Gandhi? How is it that we picture him? That very familiar figure with round spectacles and a smiling face at peace with himself and the world, clad in a loin cloth and a furious gait with the lathi (stick), trying hard to keep pace is an image well known through photographs, chromolithographs, his statues and the face on the bank note. Yet, in our moving world of colour, the picture of him and his mannerisms that most people would associate him with or picture him to be is that which one has seen on screen - in movies, in cinema. My personal mirage of Gandhi is undoubtedly that of the monumental 1982 biopic - Gandhi - where Ben Kingsley plays the role of a life time in a multiple Oscar winning movie directed by Richard Attenborough, that is perhaps the most comprehensive depiction of Gandhi's role in the Indian freedom movement.
