Bapu, the colossus...

Very few people outside of my immediate family know that I was nicknamed 'Bapu' after the Father of the Nation, for which I constantly bore a grudge against my father throughout my entire youth and even afterwards until it no longer mattered. My father was a man of the Left, very much a politically oriented man; though, as I realise now, abject poverty and familial obligations had compelled him to withdraw himself from activism. But I'd rather not dwell on that part now. Early youth saw me gradually being drawn into political activism in student and youth fronts where, for no particular reason, I found myself hating the colossus for being 'a Congressi', for not having condemned the hanging of Bhagat Singh "the way he should have." My father never bothered to explain to me why he adored the "half-naked fakir" so much, nor was it cool in those days for the Bengali youngsters to be adoring anybody but Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for the latter was "the real and only hero." But then, several years on, I stumbled upon a piece of writing where EMS Namboodiripad had called himself "a Gandhian Marxist". This left me shaken to the core, and I started devouring materials - whatever I could lay my hands on - to understand the man better, though I admit I haven't still been able to do much justice as regards my enterprise. Perhaps the man, with his unimaginable enormity, would always remain out of the ambit of comprehension of a very intellectually-mediocre man like me. But then, I reckon what a kind of visionary he was, so far as humanity is concerned, despite the "flaws" or "contradictions" that have very often been sought to be used to either belittle or denigrate him. But he was a human, and humans are prone to be at times influenced, subconsciously or otherwise, by factors that may not necessarily be within his control. And as a Marxist, I think this is the consideration we mustn't forego while judging a man in his given context and times.