Eager and innocent, he was taken by one of his school fellows, by dubious ways, to a brothel. Gandhi wept for the girl, and soon, humiliatingly, he was pushed out of the room. Gandhi had pity not only for the girl, but also for his wife, his young wife, for he was already married. At the age of thirteen he had married his neighbour’s daughter, Kasturba, also of the same age, who was to be his doggedly difficult but ever loyal companion, in and out of all his adventures with truth.

Meanwhile his father having died, it was decided that Mohandas could become a prime minister like his ancestors only if he had a British degree. Thus on borrowed money, and while still very young—he was only eighteen—he left behind his widowed mother, his weeping wife, his first son—much like Gautama, the Budha, unbeknownst to himself, this was the ride out from Kapilavastu. There was no horse and no moon, only a miserable train took him to Bombay, where he had to face his orthodox Hindu adversaries, who would not permit him to cross the seas. This was against all tradition. Young though he was he disobeyed the elders, but courteously so, and sailed for the great city of London.

There, just as the Buddha had, on the banks of the Ganges wandered among the Yogis and the ascetics, questioning philosophies and practising severe austerities, Gandhi wandered among the Christians, the contraceptionists, the Fabians, living like a monk, for his habits of economy and his study of Hindu thought were begun in London. He also discovered in London the scientific beauty of vegetarianism. He learnt some Latin, a little violin, took a hurried trip to Paris (ate dinner at the Eiffel Tower) and returned to India a barrister of the Inner Temple.

* * *

One thinks one searches for the Truth, but in India we say Truth itself seeks you. For, on arrival in Bombay, he met the greatest spiritual teacher he was ever to encounter—Raychandbhai. Raychandbhai was a pearl merchant and a very successful one at that, and yet so completely detached from his activities, his life itself was pure meditation. Nothing belongs to the inner being—the body and mind function in terms of one’s Karma. Wisdom thus may be explained, like the Gita does, as that which sees ‘activity in inactivity and inactivity in activity’.

On arrival in Bombay he had also heard of his deeply loved mother’s death. We say in India a bad son may sometimes be born but a bad mother never. This sorrow made Gandhi’s meeting with Raychandbhai ever more urgent, and deeply resonant. Religion was slowly leading him to philosophy, from a search for sainthood to a search for truth.