Medha Shri, TNN, 2-oct-2009
He’s won the National Award recently for his portrayal of Gandhi in Gandhi, My Father. But how does actor Darshan Jariwala like the other Gandhis on screen? “Honestly, I haven’t seen many of those films. I don’t think Lagey Raho Munna Bhai had a portrayal of Gandhi. It’s actually one character’s imagination of Gandhi. I saw Ben Kingsley as Gandhi many years ago,” says Darshan.
What preparation went into playing the character? “This is a director’s construction of Gandhi,” says Darshan. “It’s a unique take on the Mahatma as it deals with a side of Gandhi that was personal, which is a more human Gandhi, which doesn’t deify Gandhi, doesn’t presume his greatness, though at the end, one realises that Gandhi was indeed great. He stuck to his principles and did what he thought was right. Not that he didn’t care for his son, but he cared for truth more, or at least for his beliefs. I read up on Harilal to understand the relationship of the father and son.” 
The stereotypical image of Gandhi is that of an old man in a dhoti with spectacles and a stick. Does that make it easier to play him, because one knows how he was, or difficult, because there’s nothing new left to do? “The portrayal of Gandhi becomes easier if the actor makes an attempt to make Gandhi grow from the inside out in him. I look a lot different from Gandhi, yet, when people saw me, even those who have known me for 40 years thought I looked like him. I did that not by mimicking him or his actions but because it came from the core. An actor needs to unearth what he accumulates over years and empty himself to let Gandhi take shape. He shouldn’t be himself, but the character. If I looked like him, it was because people didn’t see Darshan Jariwala anywhere.”
There are as many critics of Gandhi as there are admirers. What is Darshan’s take on Gandhi? “I’m too small a man to sit in judgement on him. It will take generations of people after us to actually form anywhere close to an opinion about him. He is too big a phenomenon and too recent to be assessed correctly. As for the film, I would say, the nation disappointed Gandhi as much as his son. The Partition, the violence that followed, was an anathema to Gandhi, like his son’s behaviour.” Gandhi tees and quotes are quite the ‘in’ thing. Does Darshan think people actually understand Gandhi, or do they think it’s just cool to do all this? “There may be a case or two where people think it’s cool to use Gandhi quotes, etc. Even if people do not totally understand Gandhi, they perceive the subtle truth of it,” he says. And that truth would be...? “That you always have a choice – between good and bad, speaking the truth and not speaking the truth, violence and non-violence. People should stand by their choices,” says Darshan.
Does he also follow Gandhian principle in his choices? “Of late, I must confess, I’ve started acknowledging the fact that we have a conscience that tells us what is good for us. The inner voice won’t be stilled, and it does need to be heard,” he says. Does “of late” mean after Gandhi...? “Yes, I learnt a few things from that character – like, people are not afraid of the truth but of the consequences of the truth. If we shed that fear, there’s no way we can go wrong.” And he adds, “Gandhi needed to communicate much better with his son, though there’s no evidence that he didn’t, he constantly expressed his views through his letters, yet there was this unbridgeable chasm between both of them and I’m quite aware of how difficult it is to communicate.”
Has he faced the same communication gap with his children? “Not just with children, it happens even when you are in a minority of thought and you have to take a stand and ask yourself whether the approval of this or that person is necessary for your happiness,” he signs off.
Pics: TOI
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