History Recalled
By Mahadev Desai*
At It Again
Love is a relentless taskmaster, and though Gandhiji had promised (J.P.) Bhansali not to tax him any more on his philosophy of life, he attempted a different way of approach during the week.
Also read: History Recalled: The recluse revolutionary – Part 2
‘How much did you spin yesterday?’ he asked him.
‘Not at all, I am sorry to say.’
‘But I thought you had started spinning?’
‘I did about fifty yards the other day. But that’s all.’
‘How nice it would be if you would make a loin-cloth for me!’
‘That would be a capital thing.’ I put in. ‘Bapu’s loin-cloth means at the most six thousand yards of yarn – a matter of just 300 yards a day for twenty days.’
‘I should be very glad if you could make a pair, but even one would satisfy me,’ said Gandhiji, further accentuating the proposal.
We all expected Bhansali to capitulate. We thought he would immediately say, ‘That’s nothing. I should be only too glad to do it.’
But no. He said: ‘It would be a rare privilege to be able to spin for your loin-cloth, but you know my state of mind!’
Next day again there was a talk. With child-like naivette he asked Gandhiji: ‘You do not want the loin-cloth. You want me to work. Don’t you?’
‘You are right,’ said Gandjiji. ‘But if you must work, why not do this thing for me?’
‘If I must work, why not command me to do some other work? I am not worthy to do this sacred thing for you.’
‘But surely those who spun for the cloth I am wearing were by no means purer than you.’
‘No, Bapu. I am humbler than even the humblest, humbler than the dust of their feet.
The next day old associates like Kakasaheb tackled him. ‘Won’t you give a sort of love-offering to Bapu? I should think myself blessed if he asked for a loin-cloth from me.’
But Bhansali persisted in pleading his unworthiness.
‘But, said Kakasaheb, ‘supposing Bapu were to ask one of us to fetch a glass of water, and if all of us were to say to him, ‘we are sorry, Bapu, we have not the purity to do anything for you,’what would happen to Bapu?’
That seemed to go straight home. Bhansali wrote (for he talks only to Gandhiji): ‘All right, then, I spin. I shall err on the safe side.’ And he is now regularly spinning.
The Cult of the Neem
I am glad to be able to tell the reader that Bhansali, our recluse friend, has finished his 11,000 yards of yarn and dedicated it to Gandhiji. I must tell the story of the yarn, in as much as the sacredness that he attached to the task was something to admire and emulate. He would sit down each day, after his morning ablutions, and spin with such concentrated devotion that he would scarcely notice things around him. Spinning for Gandjiji was, to him, as sacred a task as meditation. Each day in the evening he would have it made up into a hank. It is customary to use the toe to make the yarn into a tight hank. As the friend making the hank was about to use the toe, Bhansali warned him against it and wrote: ‘No. It is Bapu’s yarn. How dare one touch it with one’s toe?’ Perhaps every round of this yarn is sanctified with his mantra, and on the day he finished it he had the bundle neatly made, applied auspicious kumkum to it, and placed it at Gandhiji’s feet as a love-offering.
The little episode has a lesson for us all. Why should we not approach every task that comes to us, however humble or great, as though it was sacred and for the Lord? Whether we have learnt that lesson from him or not, we seem to have learnt one thing from him. He has infected us with his cult of the neem.
One evening Gandhiji discussed the merits of the neem with him. He had found it good not only for digestion, but for his eyes and a great cooling agent. He was a sufferer from myopia and was almost blind at night but he has very nearly recovered his natural vision. The medicinal properties of the neem are eloquently recounted in every book of Hindu medicine. Gandhiji had himself used it years ago, and this time he thought was an opportunity to try it on those suffering from constipation and internal heat. But as he never suggests a remedy without trying it himself, he started taking neem leaves some days ago and has successfully persuaded a good half-a-dozen to take up the experiment, not the least among the enthusiasts being Gandhiji’s own grand daughter of four. She has bad eyes and gladly chewed the leaves as ‘Bapu says they will cure the eyes,’ but she insists on a little gur on the top of it!
Bhansali is going farther forward every day in his experiments in self-denial. He started the other day the practice of standing at night in waist-deep water for two or three hours. This was permitted by Gandhiji. But he came this week with an alarming proposal, namely to stand in waist-deep water for three days.
Gandhiji had to rule it out. ‘You are not determined to torture the flesh anyhow,’ he said to Bhansali, ‘You cannot be taking any pleasure in self-torture for the sake of it? Every one of your self-denials is with a view to see the Maker face to face. Therefore there must be some check even on austerity.’
He is so humble that he advanced no argument, and immediately agreed to drop his project. In justice to him, let it be said that all the penance he practices seems to be cheerfully practiced, and frequently during the day and night he may be heard lustily singing bhajans and filling our room with roaring laughter.
*Mahadev Desai was an eminent freedom fighter and Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary; article courtesy his grandson, Nachiketa Desai.
