E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timesa raving maniac for the loss of one who was dearer to me than my own sons,who never once deceived or failed me ...'The Mahatma thought Manilal had deceived him. In 1916, Manilal had in hiskeeping several hundred rupees belonging to the ashram, and when he heardthat his brother Hiralal, who was trying to make his way in business in Calcutta,needed money, he forwarded the sum to him as a loan. By chance, Hiralal'sreceipt fell into Gandhi's hands. The next day, Manilal was banished from theashram and told to go and apprentice himself as a hand-spinner and weaver butnot to use of Gandhi’s name. 'In addition to this,' Manilal recounts, ‘father alsocontemplated a fast, but I sat all night entreating not to do so and in the endmy prayer was heeded. I left my dear mother and my brother Devadas sobbing.Father did not send me away completely empty-handed. He gave me justsufficient money for my train fare and a little extra.' For two months, Manilallived incognito. Then the Mahatma sent him a letter of introduction toG. A. Natesan, the Madras publisher, with whom Manilal stayed for sevenmonths. In the letter of introduction, Gandhi recommended that Manilal 'besubjected to discipline and should be made to cook his own food and learnspinning.'Following this period of penance, Gandhi dispatched Manilal to South Africa toedit Indian Opinion. 'During his lifetime,' Manilal wrote after his father'sassassination, 'I was able to spend a very few years actually with my father.Unlike my other brothers I had to live away from him in exile, in South Africa.'Manilal came to India for occasional visits. The longest period I was able tospend in India, and most of it with father,' Manilal says, 'was the whole of 1945and half of 1946. Those were the precious months ...' At this time, Manilalnoticed that Gandhi's attitude ... had so vastly changed since the time we wereunder him in our childhood. It seemed to me that he spoilt those near him byhis extreme love and affection. They had become his spoilt children, as it were,and much more so after my mother had been called away from his life ... Oneof the things that struck me was the extreme softness in father's attitudecompared with what it was when we four brothers were under him. He was, ofwww.mkgandhi.org Page 236