From Kasturbai’s point of view, there were larger problems. First was the matter of simple exhaustion. Her day was long and strenuous, but her studies with Mohandas could not begin until after nightfall. By that time she had neither the stamina nor the inclination to sit through the lessons he had prepared.
More than that, Kasturbai had every reason to fear the effect her studies might have on her relationship with the other women in the Gandhi family, the women with whom she would be spending the rest of her days. Of the three daughters-in-law sharing the household, Kasturbai had come from the most prominent and most prosperous family. Her father had been mayor of Porbandar. She had grown up in an affluent home, wanting for nothing. Until now, their differences had been of no consequence, and Kasturbai had been careful to keep it that way. By word and deed, Vrajkunwerba and Putliba taught her that to prevent small misunderstandings from becoming lifelong feuds, the habitual practice of courtesy and consideration was essential in the crowded world of homebound women in an Indian joint family.
What would happen now if she learned to read and write — became educated? Would her sisters-in-law feel she was trying to prove she was better than they were? Would she be subjected to their resentment, ridicule and condemnation? What would Putliba think of her? And what would she think of herself? Would her own attitude towards life change if education were forced upon her? Did she want to be changed? My grandmother had an indomitable spirit, but she was not yet inclined to pioneer a revolution. And a hundred years ago the idea of education for Indian women was revolutionary indeed.
Kasturbai’s illiteracy was not unusual; quite the reverse. Except for a tiny number of wealthy princesses sent abroad for study, almost all Indian women in those days were illiterate. Not one woman in Kasturbai’s family — her mother, her mother-in-law, her sisters-in-law, Mohandas’ sister Raliatben — was able to read or write. Education outside the family home was unheard of. There were few schools of any kind and virtually none for girls.
Mohandas’ ill-fated tutoring experiment continued sporadically for many weeks, being abandoned, then resumed several times before he was forced to admit that his attempts to educate his wife were failing. It was a failure my grandfather would lament repeatedly in later years, ascribing it to his own shortcomings — his “lustful love”.
But it seems to me that Bapu’s assessment of this failure in no way took into account Ba’s point of view.
And what was significant is this: she never protested or openly opposed her husband’s wishes. She simply chose not to master her lessons. A pattern was being set.
Obsessed for so many months by the complexities of his new role as husband, Mohandas had made few close friends in school. Now, in his second year of high school, he and a Muslim schoolmate called Sheik Mehtab had struck up a friendship. A tall, handsome athletic youth, Mehtab lived across the street from the Gandhis. He was two or three years older than Mohandas and had originally been a friend and classmate of Mohandas’ older brother Karsandas. Unlike Karsandas, Mehtab was still attending the Rajkot high school where Mohandas saw him every day.
Their friendship distressed Kasturbai. A perceptive judge of character, she suspected his intentions from the beginning. She soon learned that Mehtab was known in the neighbourhood as something of a wastrel who was lazy and boastful. Then she was told that neither Putliba nor Lakshimidas, Mohandas’ level-headed oldest brother, had ever considered Mehtab fit company for Karsandas.
It should be noted that their objections were to Mehtab himself not his religion. The Kathiawar peninsula, somewhat cut off from the rest of India and therefore a frequent sanctuary for those fleeing persecution elsewhere, was remarkably free of the religious hatreds that beset other regions. For centuries, Buddhists, Muslims, Jains, Parsis, Christians, as well as adherents of all the varying sects of Hinduism (somewhat analogous to the various denominations of Protestantism) had found refuge there, living and working side by side. My grandfather later said it was in Rajkot and Porbandar that he got “an early grounding in toleration for all branches of Hinduism and its sister religions” — an attitude he tried to pass on to his followers.
At one point Kasturbai took it upon herself to warn Mohandas against spending too much time with Sheik Mehtab. Mohandas, disregarding (and possibly resenting) her advice, persisted in the friendship. That is where matters stood when the time came for Kasturbai to make another lengthy visit to Porbandar. With his wife away, Mohandas soon became Mehtab’s inseparable companion, and Mehtab became a guiding influence in his life.
One day Mohandas confessed to his new friend that he was plagued by unreasonable fears of the dark and of creatures that came out at night. This embarrassed him, he said, because his wife had none of these fears. Kasturbai would go out in darkness where Mohandas feared to tread; she could sleep soundly, while he, lying awake, was in terror of snakes, thieves, and ghosts.
Mehtab had an answer: eat meat. He attributed Mohandas’ timidity to vegetarianism that was a basic tenet of Vaishnava-sect followers of Vishnu. Mehtab boasted he could hold live serpents in his hand, and could defy thieves. He stated that he did not believe in ghosts — all because he, as a Muslim, could eat meat. His size, strength, and athletic prowess (he was the high school’s star runner) were all due to meat eating. This was also why the English were able to dominate Indians. Mehtab quoted the Gujarati doggerel gaining popularity among young Indians:
Behold the mighty Englishman
He rules the Indian small
Because, being a meat-eater,
He is five cubits tall.
Mehtab informed Mohandas that many of his Hindu high school teachers were now secretly eating meat. So was his own brother, Karsandas.
Mohandas had long since begun to question the validity of certain Hindu practices, starting with the rigidities of the caste system. As a little boy he had seen Uka clean the bucket latrines at the Gandhi house and once asked his mother why Uka was considered Untouchable. Why was it believed that their very shadows could contaminate, and anyone who so much as brushed against them had to be purified by an immediate bath?
Putliba had, momentarily, eased her son’s mind by explaining that it wasn’t always necessary to perform ablutions after coming into contact with an Untouchable; if one touched someone from another religion, a Muslim perhaps, the pollution could be harmlessly transferred. Later on, in a spirit of pre-adolescent rebellion, Mohandas and one of his young cousins had challenged a lesser prohibition of the Vaishnava faith. Secretly retrieving cigarette butts discarded by a transgressing uncle, they had briefly (and unhappily) tried smoking.
More recently, Mohandas had stopped going to temple — the ostentatious glitter and pomp had never appealed to him. What did such outward displays of excessive wealth have to do with inner spiritual values? He had grown increasingly skeptical about all religiously prescribed dogma, and was secretly beginning to regard himself as an atheist.
After due consideration of his friend Mehtab’s urging, Mohandas decided that, for him, meat eating posed no moral problems except for the deception involved. His parents, of course, could never know. If meat eating would make him strong and daring, it was an experiment worth trying. And as part of a reform that could help free India, it was a patriotic duty to be performed.
His first taste of meat — a feast of goat’s meat and baker’s bread (another first) which was supplied by Mehtab and eaten in privacy on a secluded riverbank on the outskirts of town made Mohandas sick. He had nightmares that night. But remorse soon faded when he reminded himself of his duty to grow stronger. More secret feasts followed, even a few visits to restaurants where meat dishes were served. By the time Kasturbai returned to Rajkot, Mohandas had actually acquired a taste for meat dishes. The experiment had become an established habit.
Kasturbai soon realised that her husband, once again, had changed. His attempts to teach