I am more and more intrigued with Gandhi with each page of his autobiography. It took a little while for him to grow on me—some of his ideas just seem very bizarre and extreme to me, if not contradictory—but I am gradually coming to see the coherence in his thought and it echoes and addresses a lot of the concerns I have for living a fulfilling life in the modern world. He is a strong advocate of living simply, with few possessions and material desires, which is at the core of my ideology, too, though it has taken some time to let go of the desire to possess. He is also a vegetarian and actually advocates a diet of fruits and nuts, which, strangely, does somewhat resemble my diet of late that has served me well. I don’t eat many nuts, but fruit is probably half of what I eat, along with a little rice and a lot of vegetables. I feel better than I can ever remember feeling. According to Gandhi, such a diet curbs passion, especially sexual passion. Perhaps this is true, too, or perhaps I am just experiencing a slow death of emotions here on the farm. Celibacy has never been one of my goals and this is one of his ideas that I found most strange—isn’t it an act of love?—but it is making more sense as I read on. I think he is right that family ties and obligations make it hard to work on behalf of the people. Children tie you to the system and you become obsessed with giving them every advantage and forget about your former idealism. Not to mention the fact that they wear you out. In fact, I read a poem on this very subject the other day in my anthology of Indian women’s literature.
Tumache He Sojwal Samsar (Your Pious and Irreproachable Homes)
By Anuradha Potdar
It’s what I want to do—
scatter, with a breath,
your pious and irreproachable homes
like a house of cards:
your escapist crises
that reach the cliff-edge
only to run back in greater haste;
your pitiful storms
that dissolve
in the unachieved ecstasy of copulation;
and the litter of sweet, helpless babies
hatched by the human female—
it’s this litter that drives deep
into the soil
the obstinate roots of your homes,
and these houses of cards
become stone mansions
for us to bang our heads on
till they bleed.
I think it perfectly expresses and explains middle class inaction and is also a warning against it. I am heeding it. It’s also a beautiful poem.
Gandhi’s extreme pacifism, too, is remarkable and especially instructive for a person of such volatile emotions as myself. All of the times I would fight for my rights, he steps back, compromises, takes the insult or injury as the natural course of events and does not hold a grudge, and in the end, wins. Most of us are so quick to perceive any slight that comes our way, dangerously quick in protecting our cherished rights and punishing those who we see as infringing upon them, when perhaps we don’t need to be. Perhaps we should all be a little softer, a little gentler, and things will work out in a way that everyone is happy. Once emotions are brought in, confrontation arises and the winner takes all. I suppose I am just distrustful enough of human nature that I am unwilling to be gentle and compromise. It does seem to be the right path, however, and is something I should work on.