Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/127

 transformed into a villain, and so forth. Gandhi would not listen to such protests. He would say, ‘Yes, I changed my mind.’ Actually, he thinks aloud, and the entire process is for the record. This confuses some people and impels others to say he contradicts himself, or that he is a hypocrite. Gandhi does not care. Maybe he is too old and impersonal and not of this world to bother about the impression he makes. Many Indians and Englishmen in India, when I interviewed them, cautioned me that their words were not for publication. Gandhi never worried about what I would write about him or how I would quote him. He did not talk at me; he talked to me. I spent many hours with Mo hammed Ali Jinnah, the President of the Moslem League of India. He is a brilliant parliamentarian, a skilled debater, and an incorruptible politician. But he talked at me. He was trying to convince me. When I put a question to him I felt as though it had turned on a phonograph record. I had heard it all before or could have read it in the literature he gave me. But when I asked Gandhi something I felt that I had started a creative process. I could see and hear his mind work. With Jinnah I could only hear the needle scratch the phonograph record. Jinnah gave me nothing but his conclusions. But I could follow Gandhi as he moved to a conclusion. He is, therefore, much more exciting than Jinnah. If you strike right with Gandhi you open a new