Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/89

 evolve a new order which will astonish the whole world. I would ask you to cast off your prejudices and enter into this new idea of mine of a civil disobedience campaign and try to find flaws in it if there are any. [It seemed to me he was talking to Nehru although directing his words to me, and it was obvious that Gandhi and Nehru had not seen eye to eye in their discussion today.] You will then be able to help our cause, and, to put it on a higher plane, you will be able to do justice to your self as a writer. The literature that is being produced on India is piffling and of no consequence. There is nothing original in most of it. It is all cast-iron. I ask you to struggle out of that groove. I would like you to penetrate through my language to what I am attempting to express. That is difficult, I know; you came here with all the glamor, brilliance, culture, and armed strength of American and British civilization. I would understand your refusing to grasp anything that does not fit into your groove or that is not desirable for that groove. But if your mind cannot rise above that beaten track, then your days in Sevagram will have been wasted.”

“Yes,” I said, after a pause during which I tried to separate what was meant for me and what for Nehru, “but will you help me to see the new order you speak of? I am not so sure of my own new or-