Gandhi Page #66

He moves off, but has a sudden thought and turns to Patel.

GANDHI:

Ask Panditji to -- to consider what

we've discussed.

Patel nods soberly and Gandhi starts for the door, Bourke-

White moving with him.

GANDHI:

(of the photographs)

Enough.

BOURKE-WHITE

(a plea)

One more.

He has passed her, he's in the doorway. We see the crowd at

the end of the garden, where the light of the day is beginning

to soften. He turns, teasing in his slightly flirtatious way

with women.

GANDHI:

You're a temptress.

She shoots him against the door -- the crowd milling

distantly, waiting -- then she lowers her camera.

BOURKE-WHITE

Just an admirer...

GANDHI:

Nothing's more dangerous, especially

for an old man.

He turns; the last words have betrayed the smile on his face;

they have a painful sense of truth about them. Bourke-White

watches as he moves into the garden toward the crowd in the

distance.

She turns to Mirabehn.

BOURKE-WHITE

There's a sadness in him.

It's an observation -- and a question. Mirabehn accedes

gravely.

MIRABEHN:

He thinks he's failed.

Bourke-White stares at her, then turns to look out at him.

BOURKE-WHITE

Why? My God, if anything's proved

him right, it's what's happened these

last months...

Mirabehn nods, but she keeps on spinning and tries to sound

cynically resigned but her innate emotionalism keeps breaking

through in her voice and on her face.

MIRABEHN:

I am blinded by my love of him, but

I think when we most needed it, he

offered the world a way out of

madness. But he doesn't see it...

and neither does the world.

It is laced with pain. Bourke-White turns and looks out at

Gandhi -- so tiny, so weak as he walks between his "props."

He has now reached the end of the garden and is moving among

the crowd assembled there.

THE GARDEN - BIRLA HOUSE - EXTERIOR - TWILIGHT

Gandhi is moving forward in the crowd, one hand resting on

Manu, the other on Abha. He makes the pranam to someone, the

crowd is bowing to him, some speaking, and we also see the

crowd from his point of view -- "Bapu," "God bless you,"

"Thank you -- thank you." He turns to a very old woman, who

makes a salaam to him. Gandhi touches her head.

GANDHI:

Allah be with you.

Smiling, he turns back. A jostling, the sound of beads

falling.

MANU:

(to someone)

Brother, Bapu is already late for

prayers.

Gandhi turns to the person; he makes the pranam.

Full shot. Godse is making the pranam to him and he suddenly,

wildly draws his gun and fires. The camera closes on Gandhi

as he staggers and falls, the red stain of blood seeping

through his white shawl.

GANDHI:

Oh, God... oh, God...

Manu and Abha bend over him, silent in their first shock.

The sound of panic and alarm begins to grow around them,

they suddenly scream and begin to cry.

MANU/ABHA

Bapu! Bapu!

FUNERAL PYRE - EXTERIOR - DAY

Blackness. Silence.

A moment -- we sense the blackness moving -- like dark smoke.

The camera is pulling back very slowly and we can tell the

blackness is smoke rising from a fire.

And now we see that it is a funeral pyre. And all around

that pyre a mass of silent humanity. Through the smoke,

sitting cross-legged near the rim of the flames, we see

Nehru... and Azad and Patel, Mirabehn and Kallenbach, the

drawn faces of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Manu and Abha...

THE RIVER - EXTERIOR - DAY

A helicopter shot coming slowly up the wide river, low, toward

a barge and a mass of people in the distance.

And now we are over the barge, and it is covered with flowers.

Flowers flow downstream around it. An urn sits on it --

containing Gandhi's ashes -- and Nehru stands near it, Azad

and Patel a little behind him. And as the barge floats down

the river, Nehru bends and lifts the urn...

Featuring Nehru. He swallows, restraining his own emotion,

and slowly, ritualistically, sprinkles the ashes over the

water.

And as they spread, we hold on that stretch of the river,

the flowers swirling languidly around it as the dark, timeless

current moves them toward the sea.

GANDHI'S VOICE

(weak, struggling, as

he spoke the words

to Mirabehn)

...There have been tyrants and

murderers -- and for a time they can

seem invincible. But in the end they

always fall. Think of it -- always...

When you are in doubt that that is

God's way, the way the world is meant

to be... think of that.

And slowly the camera begins pulling back, leaving the

flowers, the brown, rolling current as though leaving the

story of Gandhi, going far out, away from the great river,

reaching higher and higher, through streaks of clouds as end

titles begin.

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