My Experiments With Truth, the First 100 pages
Submitted by diwant on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 08:31
I am reading Gandhi's autobiography, "My Experiments With Truth", and I am a hundred pages into the book. It is a very simple read and being one to conduct my own social experiments I am intrigued by those experiments conducted by Gandhi.
So far he has talked about his childhood, how he became a barrister, and is narrating his experiences in South Africa. The experiments he has done are with how much of half truths he can bring himself to bear, with eating meat despite his parents' assumption that their children are all vegetarians, with adoption of religious ideas and discussions, and with vegetarian cooking in a largely meat eating London.
Through many pages I am more than slightly put off by the infinites Gandhi uses to measure and guide his life. I am an agnostic raised in such a family so when Gandhi talks about religious obeisance, I am at a loss for identifying with his concerns in those moments. Also, where Gandhi's guiding principal in life is duty to one's parents and that life is to serve, my current understanding is that life is by nature selfish and so must be lived that way. Here again I fail to empathize with many of Gandhi's reservations on situations brought to him by his environment.
Where I do identify with the book is when he discusses his experiences in South Africa. Being an Indian in a foreign country is not an unknown feeling to me, and when he tells of how color prejudice stung him several times in his early days in South Africa despite him being a London educated barrister, I can identify with his feelings of hurt. I am also very interested in this part because I feel like here is where the Gandhi the world knows came into being.
Comments
So I finished this book
I finished reading this book sometime ago, and it is a good read if you are considering it. He really tries to talk about his experiences and decisions without judging them and without worrying how he will be judged by the reader. What results is a very frank, very brutal look at a man who lives as an icon. I am chewing over an idea that our names are a standard that we live by. If so, Gandhi very strictly set his own standard followed it with as much vigor, sometimes to the detriment of those close to him.
One example is where his son fell sick with a strong fever. Gandhi was strictly against using animal products like meat and milk, which were what doctors were recommending to give his son the strength needed to fight the fever. The son recovered eventually, but the story gave the reader a view of a very cold principled icon where there should have been a caring father. It seems Gandhi could not compromise and be two things.
Perhaps it is for all of us to realize that we can not be two things.
Post new comment