‘I respect my opponents, I don’t fear them’

Kaushik Gandhi got his second name because he was born in Gandhigram in Dindigul district, a town that takes its name from an institute of rural development modelled on Gandhian principles. Two months after his birth, however, his parents left Gandhigram to settle in Chennai where his father, P Mohan, played professional cricket. Now a professional cricketer himself, 29-year-old Kaushik first returned to Gandhigram while playing a college match at 19. “When I went there, I was treated like a celebrity. So many people came to greet me; they said they watch every game I play (over television),” he said.

Kaushik realised he was receiving all this affection because of his grandfather. “I figured he must have been a big deal in this town,” he said. V Padmanabhan did play a big role in shaping the rural community based around the institute.

Set up in 1947 by TS Soundaram, the daughter of the founder of the TVS group who worked as a doctor in rural areas, and her husband, G Ramachandran, a Dalit and a Gandhian, the Gandhigram institute sought to fashion a self-sufficient rural community through education, health care, sanitation, skill development and job creation. “To work for the reconstruction of the social order in the country along the lines laid down by Mahatma Gandhi, that is, building up of a ‘casteless and classless’ society of complete justice to the common man through wholly non violent effort and with special emphasis on the social and moral values of manual labour,” was one of the objectives of the trust.

Padmanabhan joined the institute as the secretary of the trust. “In 1976 he took an early retirement from the state Khadi board and worked full time in Gandhigram. In the next 20 years, about 80 products were made providing permanent jobs to about 3000 people in Dindigul Theni areas,” said Bharathan, Kaushik’s uncle. In 1991, he was awarded the Padma Shri for his social service.

When Kaushik is not playing matches for the Tamil Nadu Premier League, he does think about his family’s roots in Gandhigram. “I donate clothes and money to the trust,” he said. He is aware of the unarticulated influences from a Gandhian upbringing. “I have respect for my opponents but I never fear them.”