On October 2nd 1869, Putlibai Gandhi gave birth to Mohandas. The man who changed the world for ever. All of us know what he did and how he achieved it. He was an ordinary man with an extraordinary determination and the only difference between him and the rest of the world was his “soch”. A man of such resilience is very rare to see. People try to bog you down, until you don’t succeed, “people” will try their best to prove you wrong. But once you succeed you make 1+ billion friends (Zuckerberg only has 500 million) and some enemies. And that is totally justified, a strong willed and an honest person is bound to make some people unhappy, a politician will keep every one happy (I call it, pseudo-happiness).

Anyway, I want to talk about the lessons he wanted us to learn and follow for a good life and for a developed nation. People mistake in understanding those lessons and take them literally and say “How is that possible in today’s world?”. Well, let’s talk about some and let’s rethink about those lessons from today’s perspective.

1. Resilience— The man kept going!

Take-Away: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.” ~ Winston Churchill

Never give up! There is nothing in this world which cannot be achieved.

2. Selflessness: Now, this is one of the most disputed characteristics, people say, “If I will be selfless in today’s time, the world will screw me and I will be left with nothing.” I say, lets not take selflessness literally.

Take-Away: Work for the needy, that does not mean quitting your day job and teaching the poor for free. Put in your share. We think, a single contribution cannot change the world, well, Facebook and Google exist because of crowd sourcing. A phenomena started by a single person, which became viral. Why can’t we make “good karma” and “giving in your share” viral?! I don’t ask you to donate all you have! If you can spend $80 on a Calvin Klein denim, you can surely donate $50 to poor. Now, you will say, there is corruption and how will I make sure that my money is going to the right hand (I say that’s an excuse, a lame one). Go to GiveIndia.org and start your good karma.

3. Education: I have already ranted a lot about Education in my previous blog post. To summarize Gandhi’s vision on education:

“The purpose of education is to bring out the best in you” ~ Gandhi.

Present day education is defined as to get 90% grade in school, clear AIEEE, IITJEE, SAT etc and get into a good college, get a good MBA/MS and that makes you “educated” and “intelligent”. But think, did that bring out the best in you? By my personal experience, my undergrad brought out the worst (tried to learn something which people said is hot in the market and the in-thing) in me and now I discovered in my Masters what I really wanted to do and I am happy going it all day long.

So to be an educated person, i.e.: learn what you like and understand what you want. If education makes you feel that you are good for the community, then you are actually educated.

“Literacy is not the end of education, not even the beginning. They are not related” — Gandhi

4. Simplicity, Faith and Truth

I will leave you with this awesome Gandhi’s speech to elaborate my last point.

Happy Birthday Gandhi Ji!!