Our Bapu - Mahatma Gandhi

Our Bapu
When the Boer War broke out in South Africa, Gandhiji helped the English
against the Boers. Anyone else would have used this excellent opportunity to
have his revenge upon the English people. But Gandhiji always believed in
returning good for evil, and in winning over the enemy with love and kindness.
He stuck to his noble ideal. He made Englishmen believe in his own goodness
and sincerity as well as in the goodness and sincerity of the other Indians living
in South Africa.
God had blessed Gandhiji with everything that man could desire-wife and
children and money. But he was not happy and his mind was not at peace. As
with Gautama the Buddha, comfort and luxury made him uneasy, and he felt
that the way to find peace lay in giving up worldly comfort and luxury, and
living a life of simplicity. And so he decided to do everything himself: he
washed his own clothes, swept his rooms himself, cooked his food and even
cleaned his lavatory himself.
Barber denies service
One day Gandhiji needed a hair-cut, and he
went to a white barber's shop. I have told you
already how the white people hated the Indians.
The white barber refused to serve Gandhiji. And
what do you think Gandhiji did? He quietly
returned home and sat down to cut his own
hair. He had never practiced hair-cutting before
and you can imagine, the hair was cropped very
unevenly and clumsily, as though a mouse had been nibbling at it while he was
asleep. His friends laughed at him when he went to the court the next day. But
when he told them how he had been driven to do the job himself, they were all
stunned. And since that day, he never kept the hair-style of the west and
always cut his hair himself."
"I am sure, mother, that day when Gandhiji saw himself in the mirror, he must
have had a good laugh at himself."
www.mkgandhi.org Page 27