An arrival in London
September 29, 2023
A few days before his 19th birthday, Mohandas Gandhi set foot in London. He had traveled from India through the Suez Canal, across the Mediterranean, and around Europe to reach the capital of the British Empire.
When the ship docked on September 29, 1888, Gandhi was sporting a white flannel suit, which he had saved especially for the occasion. Alas, it was after Labor Day, and he was the only one wearing white. He left instructions that his luggage be sent to the Victoria Hotel, but as the next day was a Sunday, it did not arrive until Monday, leaving him “exasperated.”
Gandhi’s description of the Victoria Hotel is the last surviving entry in his London Diary. He was “quite dazzled” by the place, which had electric lights everywhere, just eight years after Thomas Edison began marketing the first practical incandescent bulb. Their room was on the second floor, and when a boy escorted them to an elevator, Gandhi thought “we were to sit for some time. But to my great surprise we were brought to the second floor.” The room itself was amazing. He wrote, “I thought I could pass a lifetime in that room.”
One of the resources he brought with him were four letters of introduction. He had sent a telegram to a Dr. P.J. Mehta, who visited them at the hotel Saturday evening. “It was the begining of a life-long relationship.”1 Since living in a hotel was impractical (Gandhi was shocked by the bill of £3 for two nights) and the young man was too shy and inexperienced to take a room with an English family, Mehta suggested a friend that he might “apprentice” himself with, until he learned more about how to behave in Victorian London.
Although Gandhi intentionaly omits the friend’s name in his Autobiography, other sources give it as “Dalpatram Shukla, another intended barrister.”2 This living arrangement gave him the oppertunity to learn new things, like how to use a fork and knife. However, Gandhi’s diet was a point of contention.
Before leaving India, he had vowed to his mother that he would avoid alcohol, women, and meat. Shukla insisted that Gandhi eat meat, that it was essential. Indeed, Gandhi was frequently left hungry after their landlady’s meals, in part because he was too shy and polite to ask for more than two or three slices of bread. But he refused, pleading his vow to his mother did not permit it.
After a month, he took a room in the house of an Anglo-Indian widow, but still suffered from a scarcity of food he would eat. But finally, his fortunes turned. While out walking, he came across a vegetarian resturaunt. He wrote, “This was my first hearty meal since my arrival in England.” Just as important, the London Vegetarian Society would become a new source of friends and ideas. More on that in a future post.
Have you found yourself in a situation where your inexperience prevented you from fitting in?
Gandhi in London (James D. Hunt, 2012) p. 8
Ibid.