GROOVING TO THE TUNE OF HISTORY
“THAT’S GANDHI, HE WAS an Indian leader who inspired Martin Luther King, Jr.,” an American man tells his young daughter as she looks up, wide-eyed, at a mural of the leader of India’s non-violent freedom struggle. Their conversation makes me rummage through my purse and find a ₹20 currency note, folded and subdued amid all the green US dollar bills. We are at the National Civil Rights Museum () in Memphis. Built at—and beyond—the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, it serves as a stoic and sombre reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. I hand the currency note to the little girl, hoping to help her connect the leader with someone in flesh and blood
