For once real life imitated reel. Former underworld don Arun Gawli displayed a flash of Gandhigiri when he topped the Gandhi awareness exam with a 92.5 per cent no less. Gawli, who sports his trademark ‘Gandhi topi’ can now wear it with aplomb and perhaps given his penchant for showbiz at a rakish angle. The exam was held at Nagpur Central Jail, where he is serving a life sentence for the murder of a Shiv Sena corporator. About 159 other inmates appeared for it. The interesting part is that just like Munna Bhai, Gawli read the course material and wrote answers rather than doing a paper based on multiple options. Of course that brings to mind the scenes from the Rajkumar Hirani movie where the reel life don learns the lessons imparted by the Mahatma in order to impress his “lady love” and in the process has a change of heart and imbibes them for good. Whether the real life don would turn over a new leaf and give up his old ways is yet to be seen though there are tales of his rather Robinhoodish approach to serve his constituency in Chinchpokli. Once a counterweight to Dawood, whom no less than Thackeray said was getting too raw an end of the stick, Gawli rose as a politician due to his native morrings and microscopic knowledge of locals. Though his nephew has joined NCP and his daughter Geeta is now a corporator with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, let’s see how he himself gets a Gandhian legacy in action in his own party.
