Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1869-1948

Jul 1, 2001
Mohondas Gandhi was born to a Hindu family of the merchant and grocer caste. In spite of little education, his grandfather, father, and uncles became Prime Ministers of their small states. Mohondas was the fourth child of his father's fourth wife, Putlibai.
Sometimes fearing his usually kind father's short-temper, Mohondas was especially fond of his deeply religous mother. She always prayed before meals, attended temple services daily, observed long fasts, and regularly made and kept formidable vows.
When six-year-old Mohondas began school, he was a punctual, but mediocre, student. Fearing he would be made fun of, he ran home at the end of the day to avoid talking to anyone.
His twelfth year was memorable. When a British educational inspector came to examine the pupils, Mohondas' teacher saw him misspelled "kettle," and signaled him to copy from another boy. He was in the habit of obeying orders of elders unquestioningly, but not if ordered to cheat! He was the only one to misspell one of the five English words they were given and was soundly berated by the teacher.
However much he obeyed direct orders, he began to do something that he knew he shouldn't do-he began to smoke. He compounded this sin by stealing pay for cigarettes.
On the better side of this coin, Mohondas read one play, Shravana Pitribhakti Nataka, and saw another, Harishchandra. The first inspired him to care for his parents as kindly as Shravana did; the second motivated him to strive for truthfulness, cigarettes notwithstanding.
His thirteenth year was even more momentous: Mohondas was married. His parents betrothed him when he was seven. Circumstances encouraged them to see the culmination of the betrothal this year. A Hindu wedding was always celebrated at great cost. The elder Gandhis felt it was time for Mohondas' next older brother to marry. An older cousin was also deemed ready. As long as they were doing two together, they might as well economize further and make it three. So thirteen-year-old Mohondas married thirteen-year-old Kasturbai. Someone clued them in about the birds and the bees, and they figured it out from there. They lived in the Gandhi home where Putlibai taught Kasturbai the fine art of homemaking. Mohondas continued to go to school.
One redeeming tradition for the early marriage was that the bride spent about half the year in her parents' home.
Even at thirteen, Mohondas knew his role in the family: to boss and control his wife. He became very jealous and didn't allow her to go anywhere. She put up with this only for a short time, and then began to do what she wanted. In spite of this struggle-or perhaps because of it-Mohondas thought of her all of the time. He could not wait to get home from school to take Kasturbai to the bedroom. If he was up late and his wife went to sleep before he came to bed, he always awakened her and indulged himself, and then kept her awake at length talking.