Gandhi Page #20

He has offered his hand during this, and Gandhi has helped

him from the garden chair he has been seated on, handing him

the cane that is resting against it.

GANDHI:

(a smile)

I have much to learn about India.

And I have to begin my practice again --

one needs money to run a journal.

Another grin. Gokhale has started to walk with him, looking

at him intently, penetratingly.

GOKHALE:

Nonsense.

(He turns to Charlie)

Go on, Charlie. This is Indian talk --

we want none of you imperialists.

It is brusque but affectionate; we know he regards Charlie

as Gandhi does... and Charlie does too.

CHARLIE:

(a mock threat)

All right -- I'll go and write my

report to the Viceroy.

GOKHALE:

Go and find a pretty Hindu woman and

convert her to Christianity -- that's

as much mischief as you're allowed.

He still hasn't smiled, but Gandhi and Charlie have.

ANOTHER PART OF THE GARDEN

This is private -- beautiful and still. Gandhi walks along

slowly, taking the pace of the ailing Gokhale.

GOKHALE:

Forget your practice. India has many

men with too much wealth -- it is

their privilege to nourish the efforts

of the few who can raise India from

servitude and apathy. I will see to

it -- you begin your journal.

GANDHI:

I have little to say. India is an

"alien" country to me.

He grins self-deprecatingly but Gokhale persists.

GOKHALE:

Well, change that. Go and find India.

Not what you see here, but the real

India. You'll see what needs to be

said. What we need to hear.

He pauses and looks at Gandhi -- and for the first time he

smiles. When he speaks his voice is thick with feeling.

GOKHALE:

When I saw you in that tunic I knew...

I knew I could die in peace.

(A dying man's command)

Make India proud of herself.

His eyes are watery with emotion, but he stares at Gandhi

rigidly.

CUT TO:

TRAIN - EXTERIOR - NIGHT

Indian. Steam. A breed of its own.

THIRD CLASS COACH - INTERIOR - NIGHT

Gandhi sits by a window in the dimly lit coach. Ba sleeps on

the seat next to him, another member of the party next to

her. Gandhi's solemn eyes are studying the huddled humanity

in the rocking coach. People are sleeping everywhere, some

half-erect on the benches, many on the floor among the bundles

and trunks and bedrolls and baskets. Some have children,

some are very old. One old man, sleepless like Gandhi, stares

back at him across the shadowed squalor of the coach;

somewhere unseen a crying baby is soothed by his mother.

Gandhi looks at the bench across from him. Charlie Andrews,

his tall frame cramped in a tiny space between the window

looks at Gandhi dozily, a little smile of sufferance, then

he closes his eyes again, leaning his head against the rocking

window frame.

NARROW STREET - A SMALL TOWN - EXTERIOR - DAY

Gandhi is carried along in a ceremonial chair borne on the

shoulders of some trotting men. The chair is swathed in

flowers, and flowers are being showered on Gandhi by the

running children and the crowd lining the narrow street. Ba

and Charlie and two others are following in a flower-bedecked

ox-cart, lost in the mass of people that are swirling around

Gandhi.

On a building top a British officer watches emotionlessly as

Gandhi and the crowd pass below him. On this building and

others we see some on his Indian soldiers watching with their

rifles beside them.

INDIAN VILLAGES - EXTERIOR - DAY

As from a train... but the shots are varied; some close of

farmers and water buffalo, and ragged children and women in

colorful saris carrying pots on their heads, and some distant

of villages as units, one and another and another.

INTERCUT ALWAYS WITH:

TRAIN - INTERIOR - DAY

Gandhi's face in the window, he and Ba standing, looking out

together, neither speaking. Gandhi writing in the cramped

chaos of the Third Class coaches. Gandhi sweeping part of

the carriage, making disgruntled passengers move as he tries

to bring some cleanliness to their surroundings.

RIVER VISTA - EXTERIOR - DAY

A broad alluvial plain, the river threading through it, purple

and gold in the rising sun. The camera races with the train

along the river's edge, the reflected sun glimmering on the

windows.

RIVER BANK - EXTERIOR - DAY

The sun is high and the train is stopped by the river. People

have come out of the coaches to cool their heads with the

touch of water, to stretch their legs.

We see an English clergyman from the Second Class coaches,

dipping a toe cautiously into the water, children of some

British enlisted soldiers wading, splashing, faces alight

with fun.

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