Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/81



To return to the question of money. What little my father could leave for me was in the hands of my brother. It could only be set free subject to his consent. Moreover, that was not enough, so I proposed that the whole capital should be devoted to my education I ask you if any brother would do so here. There are very few such brothers in India. He was told that I might prove an unworthy brother after imbibing the Western ideas, and that the only chance of regaining the money would be in my returning alive to India, which was very doubtful. But he turned a deaf ear to all these reasonable and wellmeant warnings. There was one, and only one condition attached to the consent to my proposal, viz., that I should get the permission of my mother and my uncle. May many persons have such brothers as mine! I then set about the allotted task, which I can assure you was uphill enough. Fortunately, I was the pet of my mother. She had much faith in me, and so I succeeded in getting over her superstition, but how was I to make her nod consent to a three years' separation? However, by showing the exaggerated advantages of coming to England, I got her to accede, with much reluctance, to my request. Now for the uncle. He was on the point of going to Benares and such other holy places. After three days' incessant persuasion and arguments I could get the following answer from him:

"I am going on a pilgrimage. What you say may be right, but how could I willingly say `yes' to your unholy proposal? The only thing I can say is that, if your mother does not mind your going, I have no right to interfere."

This was easily interpreted into `yes'. Nor were these the only two whom I had to please. In India everyone, no matter how remotely connected, thinks that he has a right to poke his nose into another's affairs. But when I had exacted (for it was nothing else) acquiescence from the two, the pecuniary difficulties almost disappeared.

The difficulties under the second head are partially discussed above. You will, perhaps, be astonished to hear that I am married. (The marriage took place at the age of twelve.) Small blame then to my wife's parents if they thought that they had a right to interfere if only for the sake of their daughter. Who was to look after her? How was she to manage to spend the three years? Of course she was to be looked after by my brother. Poor brother! According to my ideas at that time, I should have taken little notice of their legitimate fears and growlings, had it not been that their displeasure would have been reflected on my mother and brother. It was no easy task to sit night after night with my