E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesKasturbai had become pregnant at fifteen and she was now in an advancedstage. Nevertheless, 'every night whilst my hands were busy massaging myfather's legs', Gandhi states in his autobiography, 'my mind was hovering about(my wife's) bedroom — and that too at a time when religion, medical scienceand common sense alike forbade sexual intercourse.'One evening, between ten and eleven, Gandhi's uncle relieved him atmassaging Karamchand. Gandhi went quickly to his wife's bedroom and wokeher. A few minutes later the servant knocked at the door and urgentlysummoned Gandhi. He jumped out of bed, but when he reached the sick roomhis father was dead. 'If passion had not blinded me,' Gandhi ruminated fortyyears later, 'I should have been spared the torture of separation from my fatherduring his last moments. I should have been massaging him and he would havedied in my arms. But now it was my uncle who had had this privilege.'The 'shame of my carnal desire at the critical moment of my father's death... isa blot I have never been able to efface or forget', Gandhi wrote when he wasnear sixty. Moreover, Kasturbai's baby died three days after birth andMohandas, blamed the death on intercourse late in pregnancy. This doubled hissense of guilt.Kasturbai was illiterate. Her husband had every intention of teaching her, butshe disliked studies and he preferred lovemaking. Private tutors also gotnowhere with her. Yet Gandhi took the blame upon himself and felt that if hisaffection 'had been absolutely untainted with lust, she would be a learned ladytoday'. She never learned to read or write anything but elementary Gujarati,her native language.Gandhi himself lost a year at high school through getting married. Modestly heasserts he 'was not regarded as a dunce'.Every year he brought home a report on study progress and character; it wasnever bad. He even won some prizes but that, he says, was only because therewere few competitors.www.mkgandhi.org Page 22