E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesGandhi says his 'punctiliousness in dress persisted for years'. His top hat, hewrites, was expensive, and he spent ten pounds for an evening dress suittailored to order in Bond Street. He asked his brother to send him a doublewatch chain of gold. He abandoned his ready-made cravat and learned to tieone himself. Further 'aping the English gentleman', he invested three pounds ina course of dancing lessons. But 'I could not follow the piano' or 'achieveanything like rhythmic motion'. Adamant and logical, he thought he woulddevelop an ear for music by mastering the violin. He purchased an instrumentand found a teacher. But he gave up the effort and sold the violin. He acquiredBell's Standard Elocutionist and took elocution lessons. Very soon he abandonedthat too.Playing the gentleman would, Gandhi mistakenly thought, bring him into keywith the dominant note in British life. He always needed harmony, and theneed helped him to develop delicate antennae of leadership.Throughout life, Gandhi concentrated on man's day-to-day behaviour. InLondon, his central concern was the day-to-day behaviour of M. K Gandhi. Hisautobiographical reminiscences of London student days deal entirely with hisfood, clothes, shyness, relations with acquaintances and his religious attitude.George Santayana, the American philosopher of Spanish descent, visited Londonas a young man when Gandhi was there. Decades later, in The Middle Span, thesecond volume of his memoirs, he described the visit and commented on thequality of the theatre, the character of Englishmen and the appearance ofLondon houses, parks and streets; there are references to literature andphilosophy. Santayana, the artist, attempts to reconstruct a life and an era.Gandhi, the reformer, omits the cultural and historical background and dissectshimself for the instruction of others.Experiences are the interaction between self and the objective world. ButGandhi's autobiography is called Experiments in Truth; an experiment in thissense is induced by the objective world, but it is essentially an operation withinand upon oneself. To the end of his days, Gandhi attempted to master andremake himself.www.mkgandhi.org Page 30