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<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Bapu</strong><br />
02. EARLY INFLUENCES<br />
"Two stories deeply influenced the life of Mohandas. One of them was the story<br />
of Raja Harishchandra which he had seen on the stage several times."<br />
Hari- "What is the story, mother ?"<br />
Mother- "This is how that story runs.<br />
Many thousand years ago, there lived in our country a king who, was very<br />
truthful and very generous. A great famine once befell his land, and the kind-<br />
hearted king sold all that he possessed in order to help his people, till he<br />
became very poor. As fate would have it, the gods decided to test his<br />
truthfulness and honesty at that time of crisis. One of the gods disguised<br />
himself as a holy beggar and came to the king to ask for alms. The king brought<br />
whatever there was in the house and laid it at the feet of the holy man. But the<br />
holy man asked for more and so the king sold his personal slaves and offered<br />
the money to him. But the beggar asked for still more. 'What you have given<br />
me,' he said, 'is not enough to meet my needs! It seems that I shall have to go<br />
to the low caste man living next door and ask him for a little charity. It is a<br />
great pity that I should have to turn from the house of a great king like you and<br />
beg of a mere untouchable. But I suppose it can't be helped.' At these words<br />
the king went with the holy man to the house of his neighbour, and offered<br />
himself as a servant to the untouchable in order to meet the demands of the<br />
holy man. The holy man then went his way, and the untouchable dom assigned<br />
to the king the task of collecting fees from those who came to burn their dead<br />
at the burning ghat.<br />
He was still working for the dom when his only son, Rohithakshan, died. His<br />
queen carried the little corpse to the burning ghat, and set about arranging the<br />
funeral pyre. Just then Harishchandra came forward and demanded the<br />
prescribed fees. The poor queen had no money, and with tears choking her<br />
voice, she said to her husband, ", she said to her husband, 'All that I possess on<br />
earth, my lord, is this sari that I am wearing.' The king's heart sank within him,<br />
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