Mahatma Gandhi his private data-the Resume.

Gandhiji.  (1869-1948)

Birth Place.   Porbandar.  Gujarat.

Father. Karamchand Gandhi,  a Deewan of Porbandar State.

Mother.Pootlibai, a religious and pious mother dedicated to family welfare.

Gandhiji was married at an age of 13 with Kasturba in 1882.

He had his schooling in Rajkot, Alfred High School.

His father became Deewan of Rajkot. Though Gandhiji occasionally won prizes and scholarships at the local school, his record was on the whole mediocre. One of the terminal reports rated him as "good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting." A diffident child, he was married at the age of 13 and thus lost a year at school. He shone neither in the classroom nor on the playing field. He loved to go out on long solitary walks when he was not nursing his by now ailing father or helping his mother with her household chores.

He had learned, in his words, "to carry out the orders of the elders, not to scan them."              With such extreme passivity, it is not surprising that he should have gone through a phase of adolescent rebellion, marked by secret atheism, petty thefts, furtive smoking, and--most shocking of all, meat eating. His adolescence was probably no stormier than that of most children of his age and class. What was extraordinary was the way his youthful transgressions ended.        "Never again" was his promise to himself after each escapade. And he kept his promise.    Beneath an unprepossessing exterior, he concealed a burning passion for self-improvement that led him to take even the heroes of  mythology, such as Prahlada and Harishcandra,  embodiments of truthfulness and sacrifice--as living models.

In 1887 Mohandas scraped through the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay and joined Samaldas College in Bhavnagar. Meanwhile, his family was debating his future.         If he was to keep up the family tradition of holding high office in one of the states in Gujarat, he would have to qualify as a barrister. This meant a visit to England, and Mohandas, who was not too happy at Samaldas College, jumped at the proposal. His youthful imagination conceived England as "a land of philosophers and poets, the very center of civilization." But there were several hurdles to be crossed before the visit to England could be realized.                               One of his brothers raised the necessary money, and his mother's doubts were allayed when he took a vow that, while away from home, he would not touch wine, women, or meat.                   He sailed in September 1888. Ten days after his arrival, he joined the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges.

In London, Gandhi encountered theosophists, vegetarians, and others who were disenchanted not only with industrialism, but with the legacy of Enlightenment thought. They themselves represented the fringe elements of English society. Gandhi was powerfully attracted to them, as he was to the texts of the major religious traditions; and ironically it is in London that he was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita. Here, too, Gandhi showed determination and single-minded pursuit of his purpose, and accomplished his objective of finishing his degree from the Inner Temple. He was called to the bar in 1891, and even enrolled in the High Court of London; but later that year he left for India.  (Continued)……Part 2.