James Otis perhaps wouldn’t have known the storm he would create when he decided to put up some Gandhi memorabilia to auction in New York. His thought – to donate every penny he earned from the auction to the poor of the world, including India.
The Indian Government, the media following suite, and naturally the Indian population was up in arms and protested demanding that Mr. Otis could not auction what should rightfully be on Indian soil as part of its greatest heritage, history and culture. It was an outrage, a sacrilege !
It is another story as I wonder why this agenda was not picked up all these years as these items cooled off in some private collection.
At the last hour, an unexpected savior. Dr. Mallya, the undisputed liquor baron in what could be the fitting climax of some bollywood blockbuster by Ashutosh Gowarikar; as he shelved out 1.8Million dollars of his liquor money to save the heritage.
Hey we should now re-look at the prohibition in Gujarat. He’s truly a king, a good man, and not just of the good times, mind it. I truly admire the gesture of Dr. Mallya, but am merely highlighting the irony of the situation and baseless laws we have in place. I would also not surprised, and more importantly not mind if the next bottle of UB Whisky or Beer I buy from the neighborhood wine shop, has a small fraction of all sale proceeds being donated to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Trust.
It couldn’t be better timed for him and of course the government soon to go to the polls; for bringing the national heritage home. Like Ram returned to Ayodhya after 14 years of conquest. Err… Wrong example here perhaps, RAM – who’s he ?
It made amusing news for the past 2 weeks to read about this political drama pasted al over as a “national issue”. Once again, Bapu provided a mission for all Indian’s to unite and fight a foreign motive.
However, I am not quite sure about what would satisfy Bapu more; to know that Dr. Mallya’s money was spent to save our national heritage or to know Mr. Otis’s wonderful thought of donating every penny back to the poor and needy of the world.
And theres more, James Otis has agreed to donate the rest of all the Gandhi stuff to India absolutely free, if we agree to “substantially” increase our public spending on health care for the poor.
Now, now Mr. Otis; after all the goodwill displayed by Dr. Mallya, aren’t you being so unreasonable. First you shamelessly try to auction off what was never yours in the first place and then you try to blackmail an entire nation in to doing your bidding by not recognizing our right to the belongings and unconditionally handing over our rightful national heritage.
It would have been so much easier to pay him off with another 1.8 Million Dollars. After setting such trend setting by Dr. Mallya, Otis is playing plain spoil sport and depriving so many wannabes in India who would like to follow suite and register their name in the history books too.
There are priorities for a country like India. We are going to the polls and have to spend Rs. 10,000 Crores on the election that are just coming up. And hey there is increasing terrorism in the neighborhood, nay they have reached our shores. We need to be focusing on our arms spending.
While Gandhi’s profound philosophy of ahimsa and service to mankind still inspires some to donate to the needy, The intolerant society we now have created in the post Gandhi era (I refer to Mohandas K. Gandhi) chooses not to walk the path of Ahima, but of Hiroshima.
About time that we all unite to bring Bapu’s values back to our shores…
Hey Ram !!
