The
little thief
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Once,
when he was a young boy, Gandhi stole a bit of gold out of his
brother's armlet to clear a small debt (not his own) of about
twenty-five rupees. But the act became more than he could bear. The
crime bore heavy on his heart and he kept thinking about it.
He made up his mind never to steal again. He also wanted to confess
the crime to his father. But he didn't have the guts to do so. It
was not that Gandhi was afraid that his father would beat him
because Karamchand had never beaten any of his children. Gandhi was
worried more about the pain that he would cause his father.
After a lot of thought, Gandhi decided that the risk should be
taken. He wrote out the confession on a slip of paper and handed it
to his father. In the note he not only confessed his guilt, but also
asked to be punished for it. He closed the letter with a request to
his father that he should not punish himself for his son's' offence.
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With
trembling hands, Gandhi handed the confession to his father who was
then suffering from a fistula and was confined to bed. Gandhi sat
opposite his father on the small wooden plank that served as his
father's bed. As he read the note, tears trickled down his father's
cheeks, wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in
thought and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He
again lay down. Mohandas also started crying. He could see the pain
his father was going through.
About the incident Gandhi said later, "Those pearl-drops of love
cleansed my heart, and washed my sin away... This was, for me, an
object-lesson in Ahimsa (non-violence). Then I could read in
it nothing more than a father's love, but today I know that it was
pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing it
transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power."
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