Gandhi

EXTERIOR - SKY - DAY

The camera is moving toward an Indian city. We are high and

far away, only the sound of the wind as we grow nearer and

nearer, and through the passing clouds these words appear:

"No man's life can be encompassed in one telling. There is

no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include

each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What

can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record, and

to try to find one's way to the heart of the man..."

And now we are approaching the city, the squalor of the little

shanty dwellings around the outskirts, the shadows of large

factories... And as we move nearer, coursing over the parched

terrain, the tiny fields of cultivation, strands of sound

are woven through the main titles, borne on the wind, images

from the life we are seeking:

British:
"Who the hell is he?!", lower class British: "I

don't know, sir."... "My name is Gandhi. Mohandas K.

Gandhi."... A woman's voice, tender, soft: "You are my best

friend, my highest guru... and my sovereign lord."... A man

(Gandhi):
"I am asking you to fight!"... An angry aristocratic

English voice:
"At home children are writing 'essays' about

him!"... the sound of massed rifle fire, screams...

EXTERIOR - CITY - DAY

And now we are over the city, coming in toward a particular

street in the affluent suburbs of New Delhi... there are a

few cars (it is 1948), and we are closing on a milling crowd

near the entrance to one of the larger homes.

We see saris, Indian tunics, a sprinkling of "Gandhi" caps,

several tongas (two-wheeled, horse-drawn taxis)... the shreds

of sound continue -- American woman, flirtatious, intimate:

"You're the only man I know who makes his own clothes."

Gandhi's laugh... The sound of rioting, women's cries and

screams of terror... An American voice: "This man of peace"...

And as the titles end we begin to pick up the sounds of the

street... an Australian and his wife, a BBC correspondent...

all in passing, as the camera finally closes and holds on

one young man:
Godse.

BIRLA HOUSE - EXTERIOR - DAY

Godse steps from a tonga as the crowd begins to move toward

an entrance-way at the back of a long wall.

HOUSE SERVANT'S VOICE

He will be saying prayers in the

garden -- just follow the others.

In contrast to those about him, there is tension in Godse's

face, an air of danger in his movements.

He glances at two policemen who are talking casually, absorbed

in their own gossip -- then he looks back at another tonga

that pulls up just behind his. Two young men (Apte and

Karkare) meet Godse's gaze, and again we get the sense of

imminent danger.

They descend and pay their driver absently, their eyes

watching the crowd.

Sitting along in the shadows of a stationary tonga a little

distance down the street an elderly man (Prakash) with a

short, close-cropped beard and the taut, sunken flesh of a

cadaver is watching...

Apte and Karkare look back at him. There is just the slightest

acknowledgment and then Prakash lifts his eyes to the gate,

as though to tell them to be about their business.

THE GATE AT BIRLA HOUSE - EXTERIOR - DAY

Godse hesitates before approaching the two gardeners who

nonchalantly flank the entrance. He stiffens himself,

cautiously touches something under his khaki jacket, then

glances back at the stoic face of Prakash. Prakash's gaze is

as firm and unrelenting as a death's head. Godse turns back,

wetting his lips nervously, then moves into the middle of a

group going through the gate.

GARDEN - BIRLA HOUSE - EXTERIOR - TWILIGHT

A fairly numerous crowd is gathering here, informally filling

the area on one side of a walk that leads to a little pavilion --

some devout, some curious, some just eager to be near the

great man.

Godse moves forward through them toward the front just as

hushed voices begin to remark -- "I see him." "Here he comes!"

"Which one is Manu?"...

Apte and Karkare move to different sides of Godse, staying a

little behind, their movements sly and wary, aware of people

watching.

Featuring Gandhi. We see him distantly through the crowd.

The brown, wiry figure cloaked only in loincloth and shawl,

still weak from his last fast and moving without his customary

spring and energy as he is supported by his two grand nieces,

his "walking sticks," Manu and Abha.

We do not see him clearly until the very last moment -- only

glimpses of him as he smiles, and exchanges little jokes

with some of the crowd and the two young women who support

him, occasionally joining his hands together in greeting to

someone in particular, then once more proceeding with a hand

on the shoulder of each of the girls.

The camera keeps moving closer, and the point of view is

always Godse's, but Gandhi is always in profile or half

obscured by the heads and shoulders of those in front. We

hear the occasional click of a camera, and we intercut with

shots of Godse moving tensely up through the crowd, of Apte

and Karkare on the periphery of the crowd, watching with

sudden fear and apprehension, like men paralysed by the

presence of danger.

Featuring Godse. He slides through to the very front rank.

His breathing is short and there is perspiration around the

sides of his temples. And now, for an instant we see Gandhi

close from his point of view. He is only a few steps away,

but turned to speak to someone on the other side, and Manu

half obscures him.

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