Arun Gandhi vividly remembers the moment when he realized he'd left his father stranded at work. He was 16, he borrowed dad's car to run an errand, he went to a John Wayne double feature and lost track of time. He sped across town and made up a story about the car breaking down.

It's been in the shop all afternoon, Arun lied. Trouble was, his dad had already spoken to the shop mechanic, who hadn't seen Arun all day.

"My father decided to walk home, 18 miles, instead of riding in the car with me," Gandhi, now 66, told several hundred teenagers at East High School Wednesday morning. "He said he had to think about what he had done wrong," how he had failed to teach his son the value of honesty.

The 16-year-old drove alongside his father, watching him labor under the hot South African sun. When they reached home, the teenager resolved to never lie again.

"If he had punished me the way we sometimes punish children today" — physically — "I would have shrugged my shoulders, endured the punishment, and not changed," Gandhi said. But his father's walk home showed him "the power of nonviolence. With it you can bring about a transformation that is everlasting."

Through a speech that was both poetic and practical, Gandhi had the East High auditorium nearly silent. In a soft voice, he talked about things young people have all too much experience with: being ridiculed and beaten up by school bullies, feeling filled with anger toward his peers. But you have choices in such situations, he told the assembly. Instead of allowing that fury to fuel violence, you can channel it as electricity to enlighten your own heart.

Gandhi's teacher was among the most beloved leaders in history: Mahatma Gandhi, his grandfather, with whom he lived as a young boy. Arun Gandhi was born in South Africa, but his Indian heritage prevented him from fitting into the black or white cliques at his school.

"I was beaten up at the age of 10," he recalled. "I wanted that eye-for-an-eye revenge . . . so I exercised, to build my muscles" and retaliate.

His grandfather taught him a different form of exercise: keeping an anger journal.

"Anger is a wonderful emotion, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be afraid of," Arun Gandhi said. But don't act on the raw form. "Write it in a journal, and commit yourself to finding the solution. . . . We must train ourselves to use that energy for good," and the journal helps focus our thoughts. "Anger is as powerful as electricity, and we can use its energy intelligently."

Gandhi's grandfather taught him about "passive violence": wasting natural resources and committing violence against nature or overconsuming resources to the point that others live in poverty. "Another form of passive violence is something we ignore: Teasing, calling names and looking down on people," he added. "Our passive violence angers the victim, who explodes in physical violence."

His audience of East High students are acutely aware of how that progression played out in recent school shootings.

"I am paranoid about that . . . happening here," said junior Pamela Swaner. Violence pervades American culture, she acknowledged — but it's possible to personally rise above it. "I set standards for myself," the 17-year-old said. "I don't let it influence me."

Ninth-grader Carissa Thompson, 15, was among the admiring teens clustered around Gandhi after his speech. "You can tell (Mahatma) Gandhi was so strong, that he was able to influence people even after he died," she said. "I begged my social studies teacher to let me come to this."

Arun Gandhi was 14 when his grandfather was murdered in 1948. It was absolutely crucial, he said, for him to forgive assassin Nathuram Godse.

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"It was very difficult," he said. "My parents forgave him. And they taught me that if you carry this vengeance within yourself, you destroy yourself and others."

Gandhi lives in Memphis, Tenn., where he co-founded Choice Humanitarian, an international organization that helps impoverished villages become self-sufficient. He gave a noontime speech at the University of Utah Wednesday and chose to also visit East High because of the school's connection to India. In the pre-2002 Olympics "One School, One Country" program, East is raising money for an orphanage in India and inviting Indian artists and athletes to spend time with students in Salt Lake City. Just before Gandhi's speech, a group of students presented checks totaling nearly $2,000 to Choice Humanitarian — money raised at the school to help Indian children who've lost their parents.

"It's up to you what you want to do with the world," Gandhi told the students. "Do you want to continue the way we have been, or do you want it to change?" If you seek justice through nonviolent action, "you'll lead the country to a better future than we have been able to."


E-mail: durbani@desnews.com

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