Character Of Mahatma Gandhi Essay

Narayan, endowed as , he is with a comprehensive life-vision, integrates in this novel fact and fiction into an artistic whole that is marked by throbbing creative vigour, graphics and gripping picture of the political happenings and upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s during the mighty struggle for independence. The story of this powerfully evocative novel revolves around the love between Sriram and Bharati, who are waiting with nerve-wracking tension and anxiety for the permission of Mahatma Gandhi to marry.

Bharati is lover, disciple and Guru, all rolled into one. She is quite modem in breaking through the shell of conservatism and choosing to be a freedom-fighter under the leadership of Gandhi. Vandana R.Singh observes, “Bharati

It is “a mission of mercy” (WM 88). Narayan refers to her role in the Quit India Movement. She brings a can of paint and brush, and asks Sriram to spread Gandhi’s message among the plantations and write it on the walls in the villages. She is always “prepared for any sacrifice” (WM 94). As the true disciple of Gandhi, she is fearless, and this aspect of her character is illustrated when Bharati goes uphill to speak to Sriram and tells him that she is neither afraid of him nor the cobras, “I am not afraid of [...] I am not afraid of cobras either, or the lonely road” (WM 100). With religious zeal Bharati carries out Gandhi’s instructions which to her, have an inviolable sanctity of their own. She surrenders herself to the police, as directed by Gandhi, and is kept in Old Slaughter House as a prisoner along with other women. Any deviation, however significant it may be, amounts, in her opinion, to sacrilege. She administers a rude shock to Sriram by flatly refusing to meet him secretly without the knowledge and permission of the jail authorities. Because Bapu has always said that it is dishonourable to assume subterfuges” (WM