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Name:- Branch:-civil-A Enrollment No:-ROLL NO:- 28 Year:-2015-2016

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Sub:-Communication skills(2110002)

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Pubblication Details:-GANDHI BOOK CENTRE

Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal 299,Tardeo Raod,

Nana Chowk Bombay - 7INDIA 3872061

email: info@mkgandhi-sarvodaya.orgwww:mkgandhi-sarvodaya.org

NAVAJIVAN PUBLISHING HOUSE AHMEDABAD-380014

PRICE:-RS. 199/- About the Author :-

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non violent civil disobedience, Gandhi Led India to independence and inspired movements for non violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.

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Character :- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma (Sanskrit: "high-souled", "venerable") applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapu in India.

About the book:-An immortal book and a legacy for ages to come. This book is an autobiography of Gandhi.It is a detailed account of Gandhi’s consisting of Gandhi’s self penned essays (105 essays in all) on his experiments and covers all aspects of the Mahatma’s spiritual life.This Autobiography is divided in five parts starting from his childhood days, his experience in South Africa where he experimented with the powerful weapon of Satyagraha and his transformation from Mohan to Mahatma, his various experiments on fundamental principles of Truth and God, till the year 1921, after which his life was so public that he felt there was hardly anything to write about.Gandhi’s Non-violent struggle in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography mid way through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself.Accepting his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence and colonialism, Gandhi felt that his ideas needed deeper understanding. Gandhi explains that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and  attributed the turning point, success and challenges in his life to the will of God.Gandhi says that his attempt to get closer to this divine power led him seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a

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fruitarian), celibacy and ahimsa- a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow his footsteps.Gandhi’s Autobiography is one of the best sellers and is translated in nearly all languages of the world. Perhaps never before on so grand scale has any man succeeded in shaping the course of history while using the weapon of Peace – Ahimsa (Non-violence).To many it will have the value of a new Bible or a new Gita; for here are words that have come out from the depth of truth, here is tireless striving that stretches its arms towards perfection. “Autobiography” in a way is a “confession of Gandhi’s faith, a very basic document for the study of his thought”

What first strikes you about Gandhi's autobiography is the strange wording of the title:-

If it had been a mere political life story, the title would have read something like 'An Autobiography: How I Liberated India from British Rule'. But right from the beginning of the book, Gandhi is at pains to point out that it is not simply a description of events (although it does provide this), but the recording of his efforts to isolate 'truth' amid the chaos of normal existence.What makes the book doubly interesting is that it was written before he became a famous world figure. He did not, after all, return to live in India until 1915, when he in his mid-40s, and he was not then the white-robed figure we think of today but a lawyer in a suit with a family. The salutary term 'Mahatama' (great soul) had yet to stick, and he was still able to travel around India without getting mobbed. Whereas biographical dictionaries devote most of their entries to Gandhi's political work in India, three quarters of the Autobiography is devoted to his youth and the 21 years of his adult life that he spent working for the rights of Indians in South Africa.Wherever he was, though, the constants in Gandhi's life were his various experiments, the main ones being vegetarianism, celibacy, non-violence and simple living. Each of these were expressions of larger philosophical/spiritual concepts that he drew from Hinduism:

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brahmacharya; ahimsa; and aparigraha. No understanding of Gandhi is possible without at least having some awareness of these terms and what they meant to him.Written originally in his native Gurjarati, the book did not appear in English until 1957. Though rather long, it is broken up into short, clearly titled chapters on the essential episodes in his life, and is one of the more gripping life stories you are likely to read.

Final word:-Gandhi never liked the title Mahatma, as he did not think of himself as a great man. Far from being a trumpet-blowing exercise, his autobiography was designed to objectively detail his discoveries and his failures in relation to right principles and spiritual truth, and he never claims to have been perfect.

AHINSA & SATYAGRAH:-The other concept to guide Gandhi's life was ahimsa. In Hindi, himsa means the perpetual destruction and pain of normal existence; the way of the world. We can, however, adopt an outlook of compassion - ahimsa - which requires us to do all we can to avoid the recurrence of suffering and aggression.Gandhi believed ahimsa had to be central to a quest for truth, because any effort to achieve an aim would ultimately be self-defeating if it involved mental or physical injury to our fellow sentient beings. To attack another person, for instance, was like attacking our own selves, since we were all simply representations of the Creator.But how exactly was this concept translated into Gandhi's famous political activism?He discovered the principle of satyagraha - non cooperation or non-violent struggle - which represents the way of getting things done in the world within the understanding of ahimsa. Unlike normal conflict, in which we get inflamed by emotion, the action of satyagraha is based on a detached stubbornness that gains strength from the quality of its principles. Gandhi first practiced it in his various battles for the rights of Indians living in South Africa, and his success inspired a young African freedom-fighter by the name of Nelson Mandela. Later, the principle was used in the civil disobedience and non-cooperation

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campaigns against British rule of India, when military might gave way to unstoppable moral force.

One chapter of book:-CHILD MARRIAGE:Much as I wish that I had not to write this chapter, I know that I shall have to swallow many such bitter draughts in the course of this narrative. And I cannot do otherwise, if I claim to be a worshipper of Truth. It is my painful duty to have to record here my marriage at the age of thirteen. As I see the youngsters of the same age about me who are under my care, and think of my own marriage, I am inclined to pity myself and to congratulate them on having escaped my lot. I can see no moral argument in support of such a preposterously early marriage. Let the reader make no mistake. I was married, not betrothed. For in Kathiawad there are two distinct rites, betrothal and marriage. Betrothal is a preliminary promise on the part of the parents of the boy and the girl to join them in marriage, and it is not inviolable. The death of the boy entails no widowhood on the girl. It is an agreement purely between the parents, and the children have no concern with it. Often they are not even informed of it. It appears that I was betrothed thrice, though without my knowledge. I was told that two girls chosen for me had died in turn, and therefore I infer that I was betrothed three times. I have a faint recollection, however, that the third betrothal took place in my seventh year. But I do not recollect having been informed about it. In the present chapter I am talking about my marriage, of which I have the clearest recollection. It will be remembered that we were three brothers. The first was already married. The elders decided to marry my second brother, who was two or three years my senior,a cousin, possibly a year older, and me, all at the same time. In doing so there was no thought of our welfare, much less our wishes. It was purely a question of their own convenience and economy. Marriage among Hindus is no simple matter. The parents of the bride and the bridegroom often bring themselves to ruin over it. They waste their substance, they waste their time. Months are taken up over the preparations in making clothes and ornaments and in preparing budgets for dinners. Each tries to outdo the other in the number and variety of courses to be prepared. Women, whether they have a voice or no, sing themselves hoarse, even get ill, and disturb the peace of

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their neighbours. these in their turn quietly put up with all the turmoil and bustle all the dirt and filth, representing the remains of the feasts, because they know that a time will come when they also will be behaving in the same manner. It would be better, thought my elders, to have all this bother over at one and the same time. Less expense and greater eclat. For money could be freely spent if it had only to be spent once instead of thrice. My father and my uncle were both old, and we were the last children they had to marry. it is likely that they wanted to have the last best time of their lives. In view of all these considerations, a triple wedding was decided upon, and as I have said before, months were taken up in preparation for it. It was only through these preparations that we got warning of the coming event. I do not think it meant to me anything more than the prospect of good clothes to wear, drum beating, marriage processions, rich dinners and a strange girl to play with. The carnal desire came later. I propose to draw the curtain over my shame, except for a few details worth recording. To these I shall come later. But even they have little to do with the central idea I have kept before me in writing this story. So my brother and I were both taken to Porbandar from Rajkot. There are some amusing details of the preliminaries to the final drama e.g. smearing our bodies all over with turmeric paste but I must omit them. My father was a Diwan, but nevertheless a servant, and all the more so because he was in favour with the Thakore Saheb. The latter would not let him go until the last moment. And when he did so, he ordered for my father special stage coaches, reducing the journey by two days. But the fates had willed otherwise. Porbandar is 120 miles from Rajkot, a cart journey of five days. My father did the distance in three, but the coach toppled over in the third stage, and he sustained severe injuries. He arrived bandaged all over. Both his and our interest in the coming event was half destroyed, but the ceremony had to be gone through. For how could the marriage dates be changed? However, I forgot my grief over my father's injuries in the childish amusement of the wedding. I was devoted to my parents. but no less was I devoted to the passions that flesh is heir to. I had yet to learn that all happiness and pleasure should be sacrificed in devoted service to my parents. And yet, as though by way of punishment for my desire for pleasures, an incident

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happened, which has ever since rankled in my mind and which I will relate later. Nishkulanand sings: 'Renunciation of objects, without the renunciation of desires, is short-lived, however hard you may try.' Whenever I sing this song or hear it sung, this bitter untoward incident, rushes to my memory and fills me with shame. My father put on a brave face in spite of his injuries, and took full part in the wedding. As I think of it, I can even today call before my mind's eye the places where he sat as he went through the different details of the ceremony. Little did I dream then that one day I should severely criticize my father for having married me as a child. Everything on that day seemed to me own right and proper and pleasing. There was also my own eagerness to get married. And as everything that my father did then struck me as beyond reproach, the recollection of those things is fresh in my memory. I can picture to myself, even today, how we sat on our wedding dais, how we performed the Saptapadi how we, the newly wedded husband and wife, put the sweet Kansar into each other's mouth, and how we began to live together. And oh! that first night.Two innocent children all unwittingly hurled themselves into the ocean of life. My brother's wife had thoroughly coached me about my behaviour on the first night. I do not know who had coached my wife. I have never asked her about it, nor am I inclined to do so now. The reader may be sure that we were too nervous to face each other. We were certainly too shy. How was I to talk to her, and what was I to say? The coaching could not carry me far. But no coaching is really necessary in such matters. The impressions of the former birth are potent enough to make all coaching superfluous. We gradually began to know each other, and to speak freely together. We were the same age. but I took no time in assuming the authority of a husband.

REVIEW :- In his book, Mr. Gandhi has described his life as a series of experiments, he performed, on truth, non-violence, brahmacharya , dietetics, hydropathy, naturopathy etc.

He completed his law from England, and after that spent most of his life in South Africa. Its there he did lots of experiments with his life. And, these were which made the changes in him. It’s worth studying the adversaries he faced in there, but he never compromised with his ideologies and believes.

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I gave such an odd subject to my review, because it was Mahatma Gandhi's ''arrogance'' which influenced me the most. It’s easy to make ideologies and beliefs for one self, but it’s very difficult to follow them to the extreme, and this is what makes difference between a common man and a Legend. As you'll read this book, there'll be several places where your 'common' mind won't agree with his thinking. The difference is that you're susceptible to change your thinking with time, situation, or reasoning. But Mr. Gandhi didn't, this is what made all the difference.

When he believed that non-vegetarian (including milk and its products) is not for humans, then he followed his ideology to his death bed, while all the doctors around him kept on shouting.

I call this arrogance. One may see it as a very haughty attitude, but there's a glimpse of 'positive arrogance' in it. He lived, and subsequently died, believing in his ideologies. Every legend (be it Hitler, Mao Ts Tung, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin etc.) had some arrogance in him/her (whether good or bad, positive or negative), and that's why history (and we) remembers him/her.

I would suggest everyone to read this book, as it’s a live example of how modesty, wisdom, and humiliation adapt themselves in making of a MAHATMA.

Gandhiji (the respectful way to refer to him) is a very strange figure in Indian history. He is both more Indian and less Indian than anyone you will ever meet or read about. Indians love to celebrate him and love to distance themselves from him. His name lives on in a legacy of political leaders that he would likely not endorse.Gandhiji’s influence on India is a topic for another post. This book is his autobiography and his views of what was going on around him during the beginnings of the movement for a free and independent India. It is a classic, however don’t expect it to prepare you for Indian culture like other books might.Aside from being challenged by his faith and life, the biggest takeaway I got from this book was how common of an Indian Gandhiji was. He talks in detail about his family. He obsesses over food and vegetarianism. He is consumed both with very noble thoughts and very

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common, ordinary thoughts. After reading this, Gandhiji comes across as the true “common man” to emulate.The book covers his life up until 1921, about the time his international fame was starting to spread. Despite not covering the later part of his life, you get a great perspective into his character, values, and travels, which stay consistent throughout his life.I was really benefited by the book and I believe its really helpful for others too. Talking about the merits it goes so long like getting many benefits and helpful tips for living life with the help of truth and non-violence. Well talking about demerits of the book I didn’t found any of it but frankly saying its fonts are small to read. Orelse it’s a very good book and I request all others too to read it.

1) Understanding oneself:To learn a potentially valuable insight into a life and thought process of a one in millions man. and motivations and struggles in the minds of human beings.

2) Gandhi vs. Other Activists :There  are other people with similar thinking but they are rarely known  outside friend/local circles. The impact they have is also normally  considerably less. So what made Gandhi the kind of man he was (as  opposed to the Saint-like general perception of him in school  textbooks).

3) Gandhi-the-seeker vs. Gandhi-the-Saint/Mahatma : He didn't spring forth fully-formed assured of victory or any such guarantee of "success". That is more of a politically convenient myth propagated by Congis.

4) How to respond (and how not to) real life situations :He was responding and NOT reacting to the situation around him. HOW did he choose his responses and more importantly WHY did he NOT choose other responses. What option would you or I have chosen? Things to think about.

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OPINIONS:-Gandhi's autobiography, which he had titled 'My experiments with Truth' can be rated as one of the most popular and the most influential books in the recent history. It was written at the instance of Swami Anand. It appeared in the Weekly 'Navjivan' during 1925-28. It covers Gandhi's life up to 1920. He did not cover the period after that as it was well known to the people and most of the concerned persons were alive. Besides he felt that his experiments in that period were yet to yield definite conclusions.Gandhi's autobiography is very different from other autobiographies. The autobiographies normally contain self-praise by the authors. They want to criticize their opponents and boost their own image in the people's eyes. Gandhi's autobiography is completely free from all this. It is marked with humility and truthfulness. He had not hidden anything. In fact, he is rather too harsh on himself. He did not want to show to the world how good he was. He only wanted to tell the people the story of his experiments with Truth, for Gandhi, was the supreme principle, which includes many other principles. Realization of the Truth is the purpose of human life. Gandhi always strove to realize the Truth. He continuously tried to remove impurities in himself. He always tried to stick to the Truth as he knew and to apply the knowledge of the Truth to everyday life. He tried to apply the spiritual principles to the practical situations. He did it in the scientific spirit. Sticking to the truth means Satyagraha. Gandhi therefore called his experiments as 'Experiments with Truth' or 'Experiments in the science of Satyagraha.' Gandhi also requested the readers to treat those experiments as illustrative and to carry out their own experiments in that light

Recommendation:-It’s recommended to read it once in your life and to swallow the morals of the chapters and always to walk on the path of truth and non-violence.

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