"I think the greatest similarity between them was their great sense of humour," Gandhi, who was delivering the D Mehra Memorial lecture on 'Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: The long road to freedom' at the International Kolkata Book Fair here, said.
"If you look at Bapu's photos he is always laughing... There is merriment in his eyes and amusement on his face. Mandela also had an unbridled laughter. People fell under its spell. That was the bond that connected the two," he added.
"Mandela also kept his sanity intact when he was imprisoned by laughing out loud inside the cell," Tushar, who runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, said.
He opined that politics forced Mandela to walk the Gandhian way.
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"Bapu was always deeply rooted in spirituality. But Madiba's belief was a matter of political necessity. To survive he had to embrace the values of non-violence and peace," Gandhi said, adding, that the South African leader took to violent means initially after which he was arrested.
He said the pain of partition could have healed had Bapu lived for some years after Independence just as Mandela was there after South Africa's freedom.