Charlie Chaplin and his movie - The Great Dictator

Shri Nathji had a high word of praise for humour and humorists. "They make the world laugh, and relieve it of its sorrows, though temporarily! Indirectly, they are doing the same work that science and religion are doing–to increase happiness in the world. Humour is instant happiness. It is like the brief flash of light in an otherwise dark world.

 Shri Nathji had seen films of Charlie Chaplin during his earlier days, and always enjoyed the recollections. He would mention the scene of Hitler and Mussolini in one of Charlie Chaplin’s portrayals. Each of the characters would seek to rise above the other, to climb higher than the other. One instant, Hitler would be on top, and another instant, Mussolini would be on his head. This continued until the two reached a height from which they both came tumbling down!

HH Priya Nath when young,  would run around the verandah in a coat and loose trousers with the left shoe worn on the right foot and vice versa, making Shri Nathji and Mateshwari laugh. Mateshwari would say in Punjabi: “Bilkul Charlie Chaplin lagdaa hai! He looks just like Charlie Chaplin!”

 Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin,  (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work in the United States during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.

His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88.

 In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote, "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most." George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (née Hill, 1865–1928) and Charles Chaplin Sr. (1863–1901). Chaplin's childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, prompting biographer David Robinson to describe his eventual trajectory as "the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told."

The Great Dictator is a comedy film by Charlie Chaplin released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true talking picture as well as his most commercially successful film.

At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini's fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis, whom he excoriates in the film as "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts".

The film was well received at the time of its release, and was popular with the American public. The film was also popular in the United Kingdom, drawing 9 million to the cinemas. By the time the film was released, the UK was at war with Germany and the film was welcomed in part for its obvious propaganda value. It eventually became Chaplin's highest grossing film.