When everyone remembers Chaplin, he will be the sweet little man in a bowler hat and mustache who made us laugh. He made fun of dictators, the rich, vanity, list goes on.

He was a thoughtful genius. He made shrewd observations. One such story which made me like him a lot is

When he met Gandhi. They discussed on India's freedom struggle & he even witnessed a prayer by him. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography

"I got a lucid object lesson in tactical manoeuvring in India’s fight for freedom, inspired, paradoxically, by a realistic, virile-minded visionary with a will of iron to carry it out”.

He acknowledged India's freedom struggle & the will & vision of Gandhi.

But he also wrote this about the prayer & I love him all the more for it
 “What a paradox, I thought, as I watched this extremely realistic man, with his astute legal mind and his profound sense of political reality, all of which seemed to vanish in a sing-song chant”

Happy birthday Charlie Chaplin!
Visionary genius who was ahead by a century !