A variety of incidents in my life have conspired to bring me in close
contact with people of many creeds and many communities, and my
experience with all of them warrants the statement that I have known
no distinction between relatives and strangers, countrymen and
foreigners, white and coloured, Hindus and Indians of other faiths,
whether Musalmans, Parsis, Christians or Jews. I may say that my
heart has been incapable of making any such distinctions. I cannot
claim this as a special virtue, as it is in my very nature, rather
than a result of any effort on my part, whereas in the case of
ahimsa (non-violence), brahmacharya (celibacy),
aparigraha (non-possession) and other cardinal virtues, I am fully conscious of
a continuous striving for their cultivation.
When I was practising in Durban, my office clerks often stayed with
me, and there were among them Hindus and Christians, or to describe
them by their provinces, Gujaratis and Tamilians. I do not recollect
having ever regarded them as anything but my kith and kin. I treated
them as members of my family, and had unpleasantness with my wife if
ever she stood in the way of my treating them as such. One of the
clerks was a Christian, born of Panchama parents.
The house was built after the Western model and the rooms rightly
had no outlets for dirty water. Each room had therefore
chamber-pots. Rather than have these cleaned by a servant or a
sweeper, my wife or I attended to them. The clerks who made
themselves completely at home would naturally clean their own pots,
but the Christian clerk was a newcomer, and it was our duty to
attend to his bedroom. My wife managed the pots of the others, but
to clean those used by one who had been a Panchama seemed to her to
be the limit, and we fell out. She could not bear the pots being
cleaned by me, neither did she like doing it herself. Even today I
can recall the picture of her chiding me, her eyes red with anger,
and pearl drops streaming down her cheeks, as she descended the
ladder, pot in hand. But I was a cruelly kind husband. I regarded
myself as her teacher, and so harassed her out of my blind love for
her.
I was far from being satisfied by her merely carrying the pot. I
would have her do it cheerfully. So I said, raising my voice: 'I
will not stand this nonsense in my house.'
The words pierced her like an arrow.
She shouted back: 'Keep your house to yourself and let me go.' I
forgot myself, and the spring of compassion dried up in me. I caught
her by the hand, dragged the helpless woman to the gate, which was
just opposite the ladder, and proceeded to open it with the
intention of pushing her out. The tears were running down her cheeks
in torrents, and she cried: 'Have you no sense of shame? Must you so
far forget yourself? Where am I to go? I have no parents or
relatives here to harbour me. Being your wife, you think I must put
up with your cuffs and kicks? For Heaven's sake behave yourself, and
shut the gate. Let us not be found making scenes like this!'
I put on a brave face, but was really ashamed and shut the gate. If my
wife could not leave me, neither could I leave her. We have had
numerous bickerings, but the end has always been peace between us.
The wife, with her matchless powers of endurance, has always been
the victor.
Today I am in a position to narrate the incident with some
detachment, as it belongs to a period out of which I have
fortunately emerged. I am no longer a blind, infatuated husband, I
am no more my wife's teacher. Kasturba can, if she will, be as
unpleasant to me today, as I used to be to her before. We are tried
friends, the one no longer regarding the other as the object of
lust. She has been a faithful nurse throughout my illnesses, serving
without any thought of reward.
The incident in question occurred in 1898, when I had no conception
of brahmacharya.
It was a time when I thought that the wife was the object of the
husband's lust, born to do her husband's behest, rather than a
helpmate, a comrade and a partner in the husband's joys and sorrows.
It was in the year 1900 that these ideas underwent a radical
transformation, and in 1906 they took concrete shape. But of this I
propose to speak in its proper place. Suffice it to say that with
the gradual disappearance in me of the carnal appetite, my domestic
life became and is becoming more and more peaceful, sweet and happy.
Let no one conclude from this narrative of a sacred recollection
that we are by any means an ideal couple, or that there is a
complete identity of ideals between us. Kasturba herself does not
perhaps know whether she has any ideals independently of me. It is
likely that many of my doings have not her approval even today. We
never discuss them, I see no good in discussing them. For she was
educated neither by her parents nor by me at the time when I ought
to have done it. But she is blessed with one great quality to a very
considerable degree, a quality which most Hindu wives possess in
some measure. And it is this; willingly or unwillingly, consciously
or unconsciously, she has considered herself blessed in following in
my footsteps, and has never stood in the way of my endeavour to lead
a life of restraint. Though, therefore, there is a wide difference
between us intellectually, I have always had the feeling that ours
is a life of contentment, happiness and progress.