He taught me to work at the best of my ability

BANGALORE: When I was little, my grandfather gifted me a frock. He made the frock himself. It’s funny that a man as busy as the Mahatma had the time to do something like that. My grandfather had the ability to pay attention to a range of things — trivial and important. Though he didn’t have much time, he gave full attention to whatever he was doing. My grandfather is the one who named me. After I was born, he wrote a letter to my father, telling him that I should be called Sumitra. He considered the character of Sumitra from the Ramayana as the finest character. It was a character that he admired. That’s why he wanted to name me so. I used to get postcards from him from all over the country where he was travelling. One day it stopped. He was gunned down. I was 18 when he was killed. For a very long time I couldn’t believe it. I missed those postcards and letters. He used to write to me, asking me about school and telling me to improve my handwriting. After his death, I might not have missed him on a daily basis, but I missed communicating with him. But more than that, India missed missed him — there were more things that he had to tell the people of the country. In those 18 years that I spent with him, I learnt a lot. Freedom, to my grandfather was not something that ended with the ouster of the British. Freedom, according to him was more than that. He was in the process of changing the society by teaching the youth about their role in independent India — values about time and hygiene too. Before he was killed he was getting ready to do that. He wanted people to be responsible citizens. But before he could get this message across, he was killed. There are problems in the country today. But there were problems in pre-independent India too. But people helped each other then. They didn’t turn to the British for help. Now we just wait for the government to help us, forgetting that we should also help each other. My grandfather taught me to work at the best of my ability, giving value for value, but not at the cost of any other citizen — that too is part of being free