what day is it?Dry day

Its that day in the year, when I cannot drink… Dry day-October 2nd. Oops, I was supposed to remember the more important things from the day. Wasn’t I? Perhaps I do and reluctantly so.
Every person, who has been to school, has been shoved down his throat, lessons after lessons, for years together, about the ‘Maha’ness and the virtuosity of the man by the name of Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi. I don’t mean to contest the magnitude of the role he has played in shaping the nature and form of politics practiced in this country. Infact, had it not been for him, probably, the progressive modern industrialized urbanized India would have conveniently let the rural, backward, ‘indisciplined’ Bharat go to the dogs.
But the man has on more than one occasions made me curious, to look at him as one of us. To be critical of him and not hold him on a higher moral pedestal seems like a task undoable in the face of popularly and staunchly held notions about this man.
I don’t know what his sex quotient was. All I know is, he knew the art of drawing masses to him and convince them about his beliefs and logic. And such meditative men, just very intuitively seem genuine. But I wonder, if he had motivations and had he been successful in neutralizing a natural desire for power? Did the partition upset him or was it watching power slipping out of his hands like sand, that got him insecure? I have not an iota of doubt he would have made a brilliant leader, political or ideological, with or without the lust for power. But isn’t it intoxicating-power? To have such a compelling authority over the sea of people, what would have it felt like, to lose it for once? I don’t have answers to it, I am just imaginative by nature.
I do soften up when I see the image of the old man with the stick, sporting a loin cloth, grinning his way to the hearts of people. But the moment he starts preaching ideals, I start normalizing again. A leader provokes, moves you to action, but that is where lies the very chore of the problem. He makes you dependent on an external source, when it comes to looking for solutions. A leader, in every word that he preaches,assumes and undermines the wisdom of his listener. The leader uses instruments of coercion, by way of speech and logic, to make you think unidirectionally. But I think at the end of the day, the Hypnotic effects of the leader’s karisma, brings your guards of logic down to levels, where you wuld rather follow than aspire to lead or atleast stand apart.