Bapu Kuti

This book inspired the Hindi film "SWADES - We, the people. After seeing the movie, I was curious to read the book. I could not put it down once I started it. The book is about the "civilizational Gandhi", who was all about finding solutions to village life, and the needs of the poor that would make India a better country, eventually encompassing the whole world, where no one was poor or in need. The people about whom Bakshi writes, may not have heard of Gandhi, but they follow his path. They gave up either lucrative jobs or a well established family to live and work among the villagers, as an indication of their sincerity in wanting to help. Their experiments show that a village can support itself using people's skills, materials from their surroundings, as well as cultivating crops like cotton, the seed type indigenous to India, its soil and climate. Interspersing certain other seeds that act as a natural insect repellant, eliminates the use of herbicides such as DDT powder. Interconnecting with other villages helps the economy of every village. This was Gandhi's aim when he reintroduced the Charka, or spinning wheel, to spin yarn to make cloth, once a tradition of village life. At gatherings Bakshi persistently asked why wasn't Gandhi mentioned at those gatherings. She was eventually told that to follow Gandhi's path was to make one "work on the self". Who wants to do it! Bakshi gets to the core with stories that deal with real life questions; how to solve poverty in Third World countries? The surprising answer - when the problem of half-eaten food thrown into garbage bins is solved in prosperous countries! What did one man do to overcome his fear of a leper he encountered? He went to work at the colony so that he could overcome the dread it induced in him. He had never before experienced fear. He felt that where there is fear, there is no love, and where there is no love, there is no God! He went to medical school to learn about the disease, and he built another colony. Soon a cure for it was found. Whether you feel concerned or not about life in general, it's a book for everyone to read, as it deals with core issues for the world we all live in. Rajni Bakshi Rajni Bakshi was educated at Indraprastha College, Delhi, George Washington University, Washington DC, and the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. She has been writing for a wide range of English and Hindi publications for the last three decades. Her previous works include: The Long Haul: The Bombay Textile Workers Strike, The Dispute Over Swami Vivekananda’s Legacy: A Warning and an Opportunity, Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi, LETS Make it Happen: Alternative Economics and An Economics for Well-Being. She lives in Mumbai and is associated with the Centre for Education and Documentation. She also serves on the board of Citizens for Peace, as well as Child Rights and You.