Walking with M is a 97-minute film about what is described as “the longest peace march in the history of India”. Sri M, born into an affluent Muslim family in Thiruvananthapuram, was just 19 when he went to a Himalayan master seeking spiritual guidance. His guru Maheshwarnath Babaji was from the Nath panth — the same denomination Yogi Adityanath owes allegiance to. The young seeker was initiated into Hindu spiritual practices, and given the name of Madhukar Nath. He is now popular as Sri M, the M perhaps standing for Madhukar and his original name Mumtaz Ali Khan. It also stands for Manav (human), disciples say, reminding you that he founded the Manav Ekta Mission in 1988. Now 75, Sri M lives in Madanapalle and Bengaluru with his wife and a daughter and son.
When Sri M was 68, he embarked on a 7,500 km ‘Walk of Hope’ with a simple message--shun violence and live in peace. Accompanied by about 80 disciples, he started walking from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, and traversed 11 states before he reached Srinagar in Kashmir. The march, spanning 475 days, was difficult and eventful, and people joined him as and where they could. Akash Sagar Chopra, the director who shot the film, had 1,800 hours of footage on his hands by the time the march ended. It wasn’t easy to edit the footage down to about an hour and a half, but the result is a moving account of an arduous walk and how it touched people of all religious persuasions.
Spiritual and political leaders love walking, and see it as a means not just to connect with the larger world but also to test their own endurance, determination and appeal. In the 7th century, Shankaracharya, the charismatic proponent of Advaita philosophy, walked a similar path from Kerala to Kashmir. Mahatma Gandhi took out many marches, the most famous ones being in Dandi and Noakhali. Chandrashekhar, who served as prime minister, walked some 4,200 km in 1983. In more recent years, Rahul Gandhi took out his Bharat Jodo Yatra in an effort to dispel the impression that he was far removed from grassroots realities. The documentary on Sri M’s march, informative and evocative at the same time, shows how a leader is able to form new connections and expand his range of influence just by walking (and a bit of talking).
What about Sri M’s politics? “If I had to join politics, I would have joined the Communist party,” he told a Bengaluru audience earlier this week. “But the yellow of humanism got mixed with the red, and it turned saffron.” (As for his attire, he doesn’t always wear saffron.) He was quick to add that saffron in recent days was turning red, obliquely referring to political violence raging in the name of religion.
Walking with M premiered in Bengaluru on Wednesday to a full house at Chowdiah Memorial Hall. It was followed by a Q&A with Sri M. His philosophy, as enunciated in the film and at the session, was the unity of all religions. The film shows how he is not averse to sporting external religious symbols, such as the Hindu vermilion and the Muslim skull cap. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who hide a sharp appetite for real estate and political clout behind their wise words, Sir M keeps his message childlike, and totally disarming. You find in his public conversations neither the hippie abandon of an Osho nor the easily caricatured drama of a Nithyananda (check out what the latter has said about transferring wealth from one life to the next and teaching cows to speak).
Walking with M is sprinkled with warm, candid moments, and quotes from disciples and objective observers of his movement. Sri M’s words, sometimes measured and sometimes humorous, draw with as much ease from the Bhagavata as from the Qoran. The film has won a host of awards at festivals across the world, and is clearly a labour of love. It focuses on the walk, and in the process, also serves as a quick introduction to the householder-yogi’s life and times.