Gandhi: A Behavioural Story

5th Feb 2005 @ 11.41am

A very poor woman from rural India had a five year old son who was becoming ill regularly. He was getting weaker, and a visiting doctor told her that he had a form of diabetes and must not eat sugar. As all of the children in the area chewed sugar cane every day, it was easy to tell the boy but much harder to make him stick to it.

After several bouts of further sickness, when it was obvious that the boy had indeed eaten sugar, the woman told her husband that she was going to take their son the Delhi to see Gandhi. “What!” said her husband, “it’s two weeks journey to Delhi and you may never see Mahatma!”. “But I will”, said his wife, “and I know that he will help us”.

She set off, and after two exhausting weeks of walking, trains, and begging for lifts she arrived in Delhi - to find a queue of 2,000 people waiting to see the great man. After two nights sleeping in the queue, eventually they were ushered in.

She explained her story to Gandhi, who nodded and simply told her to come back in two months with the boy. “But Mahatma, it takes me two weeks to get here” she lamented. Gandhi nodded but repeated his message - two months, come back.

After a tortuous journey home, only to have to travel all the way back again, and with yet more queues, they arrived in Gandhi?s room.

Gandhi told the woman to leave the child with him for half and hour, and come back then. “Half an hour! What about all these people waiting?” she asked. Gandhi again nodded and repeated his request.

When the woman came back, the boy was sitting on Gandhi?s knee, wide-eyed. “He will not eat sugar again” said Gandhi. “But Mahatma, what have you told him, and why did I have to come back two months later?” asked the woman.

Gandhi replied that he could not tell the child to stop eating sugar if he was not prepared to do it himself. For those two months, Gandhi had not eaten any sugar himself.

posted by Alison Esse
filed under Stories