HBD Gandhi!

"You must be the change you want to see in the world"
                                Mohandas Gandhi

His words are as time-honored as the holiday celebrated around the globe in his memory each October 2 – the International Day of Non-Violence.

Today is Gandhi’s 140th birthday, and while India celebrates a national holiday and much of the eastern world prays in reverence, western culture pays tribute with its own variety of observances.

To commemorate the great peacebringer’s birthday, Google uploaded a special banner logo with Gandhi’s visage to hang above its search window. Meanwhile, the Montblanc company unveiled its limited-edition gold and silver luxury pen engraved with Mahatma Gandhi’s image holding a bamboo walking stick. Featuring an 18-carat solid gold rhodium plate nib, and a “saffron-colored mandarin garnet” on the clip, the pen is priced at an easy $25,000. Only 241 will be released. And they’re stirring controversy, to say the least, with Montblanc risking national contempt for trying to expand into India’s luxury market using the nation’s revered spiritual guide of independence.

On Tuesday, Montblanc wrote a check for $145,000, handing it to Gandhi’s great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, for his foundation, a shelter for rescued child laborers. For each additional pen sold, an additional 10,000 to 50,000 rupees will go to building a school and living quarters for the children. Montblanc even gave Tushar one of the pens commemorating his great-grandfather, but he couldn’t bring himself to use such a lavish instrument.

What do you think Gandhi the elder would have said with those smiling eyes? C’mon, just guess.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia Creative Commons.