Mahatma Gandhi was not someone who’d easily shift from an idea or thought, especially not when writing a letter. But in one of his correspondences to Sardar Patel, from Jorhat in Assam on April 18, 1934, his cheerful tone—“It is about time for prayers. The birds are singing. It dawns earlier in these parts; twilight appears at 5 am”—suddenly and unpredictably turned into a lament about cinema: “A strange epidemic seems to have attacked children in Ahmedabad. Some say it is due to the cinema. I would not be surprised if it is. Observers say that it imposes a great strain on the brain and the eyes.”

Prakash Magdum, former director of the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune, calls this digression “strange”. But, he feels that it is also a reflection of Gandhi’s “ambiguous relationship with cinema”. While film studios and moviemakers were captivated by the Gandhian way of life, the nationalist never thought too highly of the mass medium. “Since he was against sensory pleasures in general, he found cinema to be a complete waste of time. He felt it didn’t add value to one’s personal growth or character development. What is interesting is that he had formed this opinion without even watching films. But then, Gandhi was a complex man,” Magdum tells us over a video call.