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June 9, 1942

to leave tomorrow for Hyderabad, the capital of the native state of Hyderabad where the Nizam, richest man in the world, rules some sixteen million people with British help. I could stay here for several more days, and Gandhi yesterday asked me to stay on, but I had come to Sevagram with the intention of remaining only two or three days and now I must be on my way. By five-thirty I had shaved and breakfasted and went over to where Gandhi was having his mango meal. “At one time,” he said, “in Bengal, when I was working very hard, I lived entirely on mangoes.”

“An Englishman or an American, if he were working very hard,” I said, “would have lived entirely on beefsteak.”

“That’s the difference,” Gandhi said. “The British have no variety in their vegetables either. It is always potatoes and cabbage.”

While we talked Kano Gandhi, the Mahatma’s nephew, took photographs of us.