As the end of the year approaches, and as we think back on our lives lived in 2023, it’s natural to remember what we’ve accomplished and what still lies ahead.
What was the midpoint of Gandhi’s life? As a strictly technical matter, that came on December 1, 1908, at the age of 39. (I find it interesting that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were both assassinated at age 39, and 39+39=78, Gandhi’s age when it happened to him.) But lives are rarely calculated so precisely.
A biographer might point to the year 1906. When the Zulu Rebellion broke out, Gandhi raised an ambulance corp to support the British army. During the long marches across the South African terrain, he decided to take a vow of celibacy, and then created satyagraha on September 11. This most definitely changed his life!
But another natural midpoint, and the one used by Ramachandra Guha in his recent two-volume biography, is his return to India at the age of 45, where he would spend the rest of his life doing the work for Indian independence that made him internationally known. Between these two halves was a four-month interlude in London, thanks to the outbreak of World War One. On December 19, 1914, Mr. and Mrs. Gandhi boarded the S.S. Arabia, sailing for India and the second half of their lives.
They traveled second class, since nothing less was available. The weather was “severely” cold—with no stove in their cabin, the Gandhis stayed in bed until 9am to keep warm. Gandhi also dedicated the voyage to self-improvement, reading and writing Bengali when he was warm enough to do so. Since three decades later, Gandhi dedicated a few minutes a day to study Bengali with his translator, it appears this particular effort didn’t pay off.
Another change that marks the transition between the halves of his life was his clothing. The farewell to London also was a farewell to European clothes. A few days into their voyage, “somewhat to Mrs. Gandhi’s disgust,” he began wearing Indian dress. Their fellow passengers were surprised at first, but got used to it. In a letter back to the Phoenix Ashram in South Africa, Gandhi committed to wearing only Indian dress from that point forward.
Gandhi’s health, which had kept him bedridden for most of his four months in London, still bothered him. There was a steady pain in his ribs, and when his hemorrhoids flared up again, he quit eating wheat bread in an attempt to cure himself through dietary restrictions. “Instead of returning to India a man full of health and hope,” he wrote his good friend Hermann Kallenbach, whose German citizenship prevented him from continuing his journey with Gandhi, “I am returning a broken-down man not knowing what he is to do or be in India.”
These things would fall into place soon enough.
What is the midpoint of your life so far?