To Tolstoy with love

On the great writer's death anniversary

- Mayank Austen Soofi

Go to Janpath, and visit a man there with a long flowing beard. Leo Tolstoy stands by the traffic light. It is the Russian writer's 114th death anniversary.

Tolstoy made a most profound impact on the Indian who most profoundly shaped contemporary India. Mahatma Gandhi was famously influenced by Tolstoy's ideas on non-violence and chastity. He even set up an ashram called Tolstoy Farm during his years in South Africa.

That said, the novelist of Anna Karenina is not the only Russian gracing the Delhi boulevards.

Poet Pushkin stands at Mandi House. And though the Soviet Union founder Lenin was no novelist, he stands tall in Nehru Park.