Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/84

 vivre. It wasn’t food. In north India many Hindus eat meat. Moslems do not eat pork, but eat beef. “The Hindu,” he said, “is contemplative, has a good memory, is a good businessman. But if you want to have a good time and eat well and dance and swim,” he advised me, “find a Moslem.”

At lunch, Gandhi was in a very jolly mood. He came into the mess hall and made eyes at the two enchanting boys, aged about two and three, who sat on the floor near the entrance patiently waiting for their food. Before he sat down, Gandhi joked with every person he passed and brought them to laughter or smiles. After we had started eating he asked me whether I knew Dr. Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan. I said I knew the Kellogg Food Company, but not Dr. Kellogg. Gandhi recalled having corresponded with Dr. Kellogg about dietary questions. “But it often happens,” Gandhi said, “that men are better known abroad than at home. There was a dietician named Kuhne in Leipzig whose books had been translated many years ago from German into Indian languages, and had gone into hundreds of editions. But when I sent a friend to look up Kuhne in Leipzig nobody knew about him and it was only after considerable difficulty that the man’s son was discovered. Kuhne himself had died.”

Gandhi asked me whether I got enough food at the ashram. I said I was never hungry, but that I