Anne Frank – perhaps the most enduring voice of the World War II – would have turned 80 today. ‘Sadabishekam’ is celebrated as a thanks giving and for a healthy future. Anne Frank’s 80th birthday is worth celebrating because she can never die. Anne Frank is no longer a person. It is a spirit of saying that the meek can be heard. When Anne Frank was pulled out of her ‘Secret Annexe’ in the spice factory the German gustapo did not pick up the diary of a frail girl. She died of illness (no she was not in Auschwitz – her mother died there, her father survived) a few weeks before the British and American soldiers reached Auschwitz. Her father survived, found the diary and made his daugther immortal. So a frail girl captures for posterity – with pictures and sketches – what Hitler did to the world. The powerful Adolf Hitler is remembered with hatred and this frail girl is remembered with moist eyes.

If you or your kids have not read – The diary of Anne Frank – you must. Not because it is the greatest book ever written, but because it is a great story told without self pity. Scared yes, pitied no.

Anne Frank is a spirit. Do not let the spirit die. One day the oppressive machinery will fail – it is surprising that the Germans left behind a small red diary (which her father found and gave it to a couple of American film makers) – and the truth will prevail. There is after all the universal law “Good will bring good, and bad will bring bad”. Once in a while we feel that God forgets this law – that is our weakness, not God’s failure. Like in investing, in the long run price and value shall merge.

A good place to buy this book is Twistntales – a nice shop in Gaikwad Nagar, Aundh, Pune