As you read last year, Pulitzer winner Joseph Lelyveld's biography Great Soul exposed Gandhi's relationship with German bodybuilder/architect Hermann Kallenbach [left]. Now, the government of India has made it their "highest priority" to acquire a collection of more than 1,000 letters and documents the two friends exchanged. They've succeeded in buying the trove outright, for $1.28 million, preventing it going to auction in London. One potential scenario is that the gayest letters will disappear and the government will parade the remaining letters as proof that the men were platonic acquaintances.
The Wall Street Journal's review of Lelyveld's book cited these quotes from other correspondence:
"Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach about "how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance." Gandhi nicknamed himself "Upper House" and Kallenbach "Lower House," and he made Lower House promise not to "look lustfully upon any woman." The two then pledged "more love, and yet more love ... such love as they hope the world has not yet seen."
What a shame. We cannot simply let people be themselves in all their messy, loving beauty. :(
Posted by: J.P. | July 16, 2012 at 05:51 AM
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Posted by: ajit vadakayil | September 08, 2012 at 10:56 PM