‘Gandhi Gatha’ to uncover untold stories from Mahatma Gandhi’s life

A new series, "Gandhi Gatha," is being launched to uncover the small and untold stories from Mahatma Gandhi's life that often get left behind amid the major and most talked-about events in history. The series will be presented on the YouTube channel Avadh Panch and will be presented by senior journalist Madhukar Upadhyay.

The aim of 'Gandhi Gatha' isn't just to tell the story of Gandhi's life in terms of major historical events, dates, and times. The series will focus on the smaller episodes and human stories from his life that are available but, buried in thousands of pages, are often less accessible to the public.

Introducing the series, Madhukar Upadhyay explains that when writing history, historians often focus on major events. One reason for this is that the date, time, and people involved in major events can be easily recorded and verified. However, smaller events are often relegated to footnotes or marginalia.

Focus on stories rather than dates

The unique feature of "Gandhi Gatha" will be that the events of Gandhiji's life will not be presented in any set order. This means that the stories will not be arranged according to the dates or years of his life.

The idea behind the series is that if things like year, date, day and time are removed from Gandhiji's life, then such stories related to his life come to light which generally do not get a chance to be read or heard.

According to Madhukar Upadhyay, there is a wealth of material available about Gandhiji, and information about his major events can be verified from various sources. However, finding smaller stories among thousands of pages is not easy. 'Gandhi Gatha' attempts to unearth these stories and bring them together.

These stories are not unwritten, they are untold.

In the series, the stories related to Gandhiji are described not as "unwritten," but as "untold." This means that these events are recorded somewhere, but they are rarely mentioned in popular discourse and mainstream history. For this reason, the series also breaks the traditional chronological order of events. In one issue, an event from 1930 or after 1946 may appear first, while in another issue, a story from 1915 or some other period of Gandhiji's life may appear.

The story of the dog in the Noakhali incident

An example of the kinds of stories featured in "Gandhi Gatha" is provided through an incident related to Noakhali. According to Madhukar Upadhyay, Gandhiji traveled on foot to stop the riots in Noakhali. Amidst this entire incident, there is also an incident involving a dog, which is not often mentioned.

It is said that Gandhiji found a dog and it led him to its owner's house. When Gandhiji arrived at the house, there were no living people there, but only dead bodies. The series will attempt to highlight such small, human, and lesser-known incidents.

A new episode will come every day

The first episode of 'Gandhi Gatha' will air on September 20th. After that, the series plans to feature a new episode every day, meaning viewers will hear a new story from Gandhiji's life every day. The series will begin with Gandhiji's favorite hymn, 'Vaishnav Jan To Tene Kahiye,' written by Narsi Mehta. Renowned singer Shubha Mudgal has sung this hymn for the program. This hymn will be used in the series' presentation, and will be sung in Shubha Mudgal's voice at the beginning of each episode.

Through 'Gandhi Gatha', an attempt has been made to look at Gandhiji's life from a different perspective, in which instead of big historical events, the focus will be on those small stories which bring out different aspects of his life and personality.