Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/74

 ing for a new order. This is the reality. All else is speculation. I have allowed myself to indulge in it as a test of my bona fides and for the sake of ex plaining in a concrete manner at least what I mean by my proposal.

M. K..

(These questions and answers appeared in the Harijan of June 14, 1942.)

At dinner today Gandhi asked me whether I knew Upton Sinclair. He was interested to know what Sinclair was doing. He said he now and then got books written by Sinclair but he had little time to read. They had corresponded with one another. He said he thought Sinclair must exercise a salutary influence on American social thinking.

Gandhi watched me eat. Then he said, “You still refuse my vegetables?”

“I defer to you as a man, a leader, and a statesman,” I replied, “but not as a chef.” I had been served this mess of spinach leaves and squash at every meal I had had at Sevagram, and I was through with it.

He asked me about my two sons. From that I concluded that he had been looking into “Men and Politics.” Some cats came in and played under the table on which the large pots and pans of food stood. I said to Gandhi, “In 1938 I visited Mr. Lloyd George at Churt and he told me about you.”