I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t know more about Gandhi before going to India. For being one of the most influential people to have ever lived in India, I sure didn’t know that much.
Nobody ever quizzed me about him or put me on the spot and made me tell them what I knew about him, but still, it seems like it should be a prerequisite to know about him before you go to India.
Anyway, I learned little bits about him here and their while we were staying in McLeod. I knew he was considered the father of the nation, he’s on just about every piece of money, and he’s always referred to as Gandhi-ji (to add respect). At the hostel they put a picture of him right up there with a picture of a Hindu God, and another of the Dalai Lama. So he is practically considered a God for what he did.
After we got back to Delhi though, and had a few days to kill before flying out, we were looking for things to do and found out about a Gandhi museum in the city. It actually turns out there are two museums, both pretty close to each other, but I’d say we chose the right one because it had air conditioning. We went to the other one too, but just briefly because we were already so overloaded with information from the first.
It was a fairly little museum, but it was packed with information. Lots of photos and lots of written descriptions explaining the pictures or just talking about parts of his life, or his ideas or theories.