I am deeply grateful to this organization for felicitating me this evening. I am particularly happy at receiving the bust of Mahatma Gandhi. Because, it was on 7th and 8th August 1942, when I was just 20 years old, I heard Mahatma Gandhi at Gowalia Tank, Mumbai, addressing the Congress session when he gave the call for Quit India Movement. I was a student studying for my MA degree with mathematics. I attended that session for two days and on 8th August, 1942, I heard Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation — it was a memorable experience. I could still see him at a distance on the podium, clad in his loin cloth. It was the Father of the Nation and no one felt more deeply than he, the mute and dumb agony of the people of this country. He was a master of the English language and on that day he spoke. His words of anguish still ring in my ears. He said, I still remember one sentence that he uttered, ‘Stare at the world, though the world has bloodshot eyes for you. Go ahead for fear of God within’. Sentences after sentences dressed in the finest English prose flowed from his lips. They were biblical in nature and they touched the hearts of every one that listened to him. And after listening to him, I decided I must join the freedom struggle. Next day I gave up my studies. I joined the freedom struggle. I went to jail for one month in a British prison. Thereafter I went underground. Again there was a warrant for my arrest and for several months I worked for the freedom of my country and that is an experience which I will never forget. That is the experience which moulded my life and taught me that the love of the country must come above everything else and one must be ready to lay down one’s life for the sake of the country. And that is the message which I have tried to follow to the best of my ability. I might have succeeded, I might have failed, but that is the message which is uppermost in my mind and it is inspired by that message that I have tried to serve the people of India, even as a judge. And I am very glad that today I have an opportunity of saying a few words to all of you, in order to tell you that service of man is service of God. Put every thing else above but never forget the common man of India.