India, Jan. 6 -- A little noticed centenary slipped by in 2025. Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, a bestseller, is now 100 years old. It has long been widely agreed that Gandhi was a communicator par excellence. But was he a communicator in the current use of the term? Could it be that what he actually excelled at was true and heartfelt expression of experiences and insights arising from them? The difference between expressing yourself truly and "effective" communication may be one of the most crucial challenges facing the human species as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century. Today, effective communication is more associated with marketing and playing with optics in ways that have impact. This can and is being done to manipulate the audience's impulses in ways that have been so normalised that it is hardly even considered ethically problematic. As a young friend said recently - if we focus entirely on what should be, in a moral or ethical frame, then we are not able to work with what is, what is actually functional on the ground. The fear of being left behind, she added, then compels one to not pay attention to the should be. It is important here to note the underlying angst of this young person. There is more than a hint of sadness about being swept along by larger trends that push you to ignore the "should be". For this reason alone, it is eminently worthwhile to dwell a bit on Gandhi's genius for self-expression. The crucial key to this story is, for me, not in Gandhi's own writings but in the story of his life written by Louis Fischer (The Life of Mahatma Gandhi), who wrote: "Intellectual contact with him (Gandhi) was a delight because he opened his mind and allowed one to see how the machine works. He did not attempt to express his ideas in finished form. He thought aloud; he revealed each step in his thinking. You heard not only words but also his thoughts. You could therefore follow him as he moved to a conclusion. This prevented him from talking like a propagandist; he talked like a friend. He was interested in an exchange of views, but more in the establishment of a personal relationship." This inner strength was only partially a gift, a quality Gandhi may have been born with. For the large part he assiduously cultivated the longing to keep seeking truth and all his strivings were an extension of this search. Therefore, he never claimed to be perfect nor did he ever fall under that delusion in his own mind. It follows that if we want to learn from Gandhi, or seek solace amid the cacophony of communication, we need to resolve some questions in our own mind. When we express ourselves in this digital age - is it in order to spread an idea or information that serves our own purpose, ie. is from our side? Or is our core aim to reach out and make contact, to serve the larger good as in sarve sukhina (wellbeing of all)? Today, many people may argue that there is no such thing as the truth, there are only points of view. Given the limits of human cognition this is partly true. It is vital to distinguish between vantage-point - which determines what an individual could see and hear in a real-life, real-time situation - and an opinion, which is how a person responded to what happened. For example, there is now a tendency to write about the end of Gandhi's life by saying only that he died on January 30, 1948 - when the material fact is that he was killed, shot at point-blank range. When this is done deliberately, it is manipulation through part truth - in order to draw attention away from who killed Gandhi and why. Being truthful, as Gandhi tirelessly demonstrated, is an ongoing process of honest cognition. Those who seek to live with ample space for expressing the moral and ethical should be dimension can lean on Gandhi in many ways but here are just three clues. One, face material facts with unwavering attention to detail; two, keep an open mind and open heart, in observing how different people respond to the material fact; and three, remain firmly grounded in core moral values, no matter how fluid or turbulent material facts might be....