Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/52

 asked him what was the theory behind his weekly day of silence. “What do you mean by theory?” he asked.

“I mean the principle, the motivation,” I replied.

He smiled. “It happened when I was being torn to pieces,” he began. “I was working very hard, travelling in hot trains incessantly, speaking at many meetings, and being approached in trains and elsewhere by thousands of people who asked questions, made pleas, and wished to pray with me. I wanted to rest for one day a week. So I instituted the day of silence. Later of course I clothed it with all kinds of virtues and gave it a spiritual cloak. But the motivation was really nothing more than that I wanted to have a day off.”

We walked on. He leaned his hand on a young woman who worked in the ashram kitchen. “Silence is very relaxing,” he mused. “It is not relaxing in itself. But when you can talk and don’t, it gives you great relief—and there is time for thought.”

I was walking next to Gandhi but the girl from the kitchen had interposed a big black umbrella between us to keep the sun off Gandhi. He wore no cloth on his chest or head. Dr. Das came up and shaded Gandhi with an umbrella from the other side. At times, Dr. Das hurried ahead and removed