I can very well relate to your words, and that´s what I meant the other day when I said I, like others, are “grateful for the gifts of Shantam´s Motherland”.

True it is that so much is unforgettable; also, besides the Pune Ashram, the traces which that left and in a miraculous way have become cellular memories, even though cellular material has renewed completely since…

I love to watch documentaries and life stories from all over the world and do that quite often.
And I love to share with others how we are moved by it.

So, thank you for this.

Madhu

The man – a ‘hard-nosed’, ultra-competitive (and highly successful) market trader, who (apart from time in prison), had had just 10 weeks of holiday in the last 50 years! – went through a certain transformation through participating in Indian communal street life, being exposed, for the first time, to a Hindu religious festival, taking part as well as being a ‘spectator’, and plying his trade (buying and selling fruit and vegetables) in a huge Delhi wholesale market.

He was visibly affected by the festival, by the devotional sincerity of the people, and particularly by how the market functioned, whereby many people ended up with a profit, via a series of buying and selling, rather than carrying on by the ‘every man for himself’ ethos, whereby a few ‘clean up’ by ruthlessly exploiting the rest (which had been his habitual style for decades).

He was moved by how people struggled and got by, eg by the help he had from a willing, cheerful young man who was doing his best to earn money in the market to provide for his wife and child, hundreds of miles away.

Then there was the divorced young woman whose child had been taken away and, unable to have another, wanted to adopt one so that she could return to her home with her new husband and pretend the child was theirs! As she said, “Everyone has their story in this market, and that’s mine.”

Life in the raw, Indian-style…If you really get into it, as Fred Barton did, it can change you…It seemed to expand his vision of ‘what life’s about’, making him less ‘individualistic’, less compulsively competitive, less greedy, less selfish (appropriate word for a man whose business is selling fish!), more compassionate.

He ended up doing something way out of character, taking a big risk by giving credit to two stall owners who didn’t have the money to pay for the goods and having to find them on another day. They both paid (although one tried not to) – and remarkably, the final scene of the programme was back in Billingsgate, where we saw him on the phone at work, cheerfully giving credit to a customer, breaking the habit of a working lifetime.

His own part in the episode had not been fearfully creditable. Even Bunter realised that. Still, as it had turned out, Skip had not needed help.

He had beaten the Highcliffians, one against three, and put them to flight. And Pon & Co.’s defeat was a great satisfaction to Bunter.

After what Pon had done the previous day, Bunter would have been very glad to get Pon’s head into chancery. Skip had had it in chancery, which was really just as good; and every thump on Pon’s features had been a happy satisfaction to Bunter.”

^ THE TENTH CHAPTER.
‘Just Like Bunter!’

I mean, share what was it that ´opened eyes´ (yours)?

I would be interested to read, couldn´t open up the feature in BBC.
Anyway, I would like to read what touched you in this.

Madhu

No one could have put it better, be proud.

Madhu

(* Relax, Shantam Iqbal, it’s not you, it’s a character from PM’s school, Greyfriars, in ‘Billy Bunter’s Schooldays’. Hurree and PM are both in the 5th form, btw).