Raising it an octave for Mahatma Gandhi's martyrdom day

Marigold garlands hang from fences, strings of little bulbs line paths, awnings of white cloth billow in the chilly breeze. The leader exhorts the singers to raise their pitch an octave. In the run-up to the 60th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's martyrdom, it is busy at 5, Tees January Marg, where he was assassinated.
Hauling their bags, four students of St Paul's school walk companionably on the green lawns, looking at the small canopy marking the exact area where Gandhi fell at 5.17 p.m. on Jan 30, 1948.
"Do I follow Gandhi's thoughts? Yes and no. I don't use abusive words against anybody," says Sheetal Panwar, a Class 8 student. "But, I do lie," admits her classmate Sajal Jain, shamefacedly, "and I do fight, but not with punches."

As they walk in the weak sunlight, children in a dozen different school uniforms sit in clusters, sharing their food or talking animatedly. Meanwhile, workers run from one end to another, looking busy, sometimes armed with a can of paint or hauling a cart, laden with wooden boards or potted plants.
Sajal, Sheetal and their friends, along with over 1,500 school students, are in Gandhi Smriti to rehearse for the prayer meeting to mark the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi Wednesday.
Besides schoolchildren rendering bhajans, violin maestro L. Subramaniam and his wife Kavita Krishnamurti will perform at the solemn function that will be attended by President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh among others.
With the wind blowing hard, the rehearsal is moved indoors to a pavilion, where over a thousand children huddle together to practise the chorus.
Their voices rise and fall together in some of Gandhi's favourite hymns. "I did not know you could sing so well... with such feeling," says the director of the show, encouragingly. "Now, why don't I just raise the pitch by an octave," he suggests, drawing groans of protest.
Inside the two-storey whitewashed building, 54-year-old Hannah Thomsen, a Danish tourist, moves from one wall panel to another, reading quotes from Gandhi.
"I first thought, is this a school?" laughs Thomsen. She and her husband have come to take a look at the place because "like Hans Christian Andersen is identified with Denmark, for us, India means Gandhi".
On the covered walkway beside the extensive lawns, Tia Shuyler and her family read the story of the 1942 Quit India movement.
Her father, William Shuyler, points to his daughter as the "prime motivator" for getting them to Gandhi Smriti on the last day of their India sojourn.
"I had studied about Gandhi in my school, but it was really in context of his spirituality, where he is grouped along with Martin Luther King Junior and Mother Teresa," says Tia, 23, a student of political science from the US. "I was more interested in learning about his political views."
During her first visit to this country, Tia has often been asking herself what the Mahatma would think of modern India. "In fact, when I saw the traffic here, I asked my mother, what would Gandhi think about it."
She feels it is time for another Gandhi. "I am very glad that he was in India, but we need somebody like him right now in America."
Indo-Asian News Service