Page 119 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

the thought of anger or hatred against my assailant, I know that that will

rebound to my eternal welfare."

Of late, it had appeared that he had a premonition. He had lost his desire to
live for the full span of human life — which he believed was 125 years. He often

said that he would like God to take him away if he could not serve his people,

but only be a witness to fratricidal strife and inhumanity. He had no desire to
live to see this misery and madness if he could not end it. Every day in the

evening he sat with the people in common prayer to God who was Ishwar to

some, Allah to some. He never missed his prayer. On the 20th of January, while
he was at prayer, there was an explosion and commotion in the audience.

Gandhi sat through the prayer motionless, without even a muscle twitching.

When Lady Mountbatten congratulated him on his escape and utter equanimity,

he said, "If somebody fired at me point blank and I faced the bullet with a
smile, repeating the name of God in my heart, I should indeed be deserving of

congratulations." On the 29th of January, a day before the end, he told his

granddaughter that if he were a true Mahatma he would face the bullet of an

assassin with love in his heart and God's name on his lips.

On the 30th of January at 5 p.m. as on every preceding day, the crowd was

waiting for Gandhi in the prayer ground. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had come to
meet him, perhaps to talk of differences that had surfaced between the

Mahatma and him, and Jawaharlal and him. Gandhi was talking to him when his

granddaughter Manu pointed out that he was getting late for prayer. He could

not bear being late, least of all, for prayer. He got up in a hurry, took leave of
the Sardar and walked briskly to the prayer ground, leaning on the shoulders of

Manu and Abha, his granddaughter and granddaughter-in-law. As he neared the

raised ground, someone tried to edge forward, ostensibly to touch the

Mahatma's feet. Manu tried to push him away. But he managed to reach the
Mahatma. In a second, he bowed to the Mahatma, and as he rose pumped three

bullets into him from a pistol that he had hidden in his dress. The shots were

fired point blank. Two pierced the Mahatma's chest and went out, one was
lodged in his lung. The Mahatma seemed to flounder. He slipped down with

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