Presentation On Gandhijis Stealing & Atonement

Group Members: 1. Nitin Khetarpal 2. Saurabh Parmar 3. Sachin Dargan 4. Piyush Choudhary 5. Gautam Pahuja 6. Ashish Dutta 7559 7554 7511 7544 7582 7532

Mahatma Gandhi
Full Name: Born: Died: Nationality: Parents: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 2 October 1869 30 January 1948 (aged 78) Indian Putlibai Gandhi (Mother) Karamchand Gandhi (Father) Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas Kasturba Gandhi

Children:

Wife:

Summary
Addiction: Gandhiji and his relative became fond of smoking. They were enamoured of the smell of a cigarette & imagined a sort of pleasure in emitting clouds of smoke. They copied the example of gandhijis uncle, who had this habit. They had no money so they began pilfering stumps of cigarettes thrown away by the uncle.

After that they began to steal coppers from the servants pocket money to purchase Indian cigarettes. They heard that the stalks of a certain plant were porous & could be smoked like cigarettes, so they began this type of smoking.

Suicide
It was unbearable for them that they couldnt do anything without elders permission. At last, in sheer disgust, they decided to commit suicide. They heard that Dhatura seeds were an effective poison. Then they looked for a lonely corner, but their courage failed them. After sometime, they realised it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it.

The thought of suicide ultimately resulted in both of them bidding good-bye to the habit of smoking stumps of cigarettes. After then, they even couldnt bear to travel in a compartment full of people smoking. They become choked.

Stealing
Gandhiji pilfered the coppers when he was twelve or thirteen, possibly less. Another theft he committed was that he stole a bit of gold out of his meat eating brothers armlet. His brother had run into a debt of about twentyfive rupees. It was not difficult to clip a bit out of an armlet of solid gold. Well, it was done, and the debt cleared. But this become more than he could bear.

Confession
Gandhiji resolved never to steal again in his life. He also made up his mind to confess it to his father. But he did not dare to speak. He was afraid of the pain that will cause to his father. At last he decided to write out the confession & submit it to his father & ask his forgiveness. He wrote it on a slip of paper & handed him himself.

 In the note, he confessed his guilt & asked for adequate punishment of it. He also requested him not to punish himself for his offence. He was trembling as he handed the confession as at that time his father was suffering from fistula & was confined to bed. While reading the confession, pearl-drops trickled down his fathers cheeks, wetting the paper.

 For a moment, he closed his eyes in thought & then tore up the note. Gandhiji also cried & he could see his fathers agony. His fathers pearl-drops of love cleansed his heart & washed his sin away. This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to his father. He thought he would be angry, say hard things & strike his forehead.

 But he was so wonderfully peaceful & he believes that was due to his clean confession. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again is the purest type of repentance. Gandhiji believes that his confession made his father feel absolutely safe & increased his affection for him beyond measure.

What We Have Learnt

Never do anything in your life if your heart not approves it or that make you feel guilty. If you have made any mistake in your life, then confess it with pure heart & honesty to your elder because if you try to cover your mistake with a lie (that is against gandhijis teaching of speaking truth), you will get trapped in your own lies, then the chain of your lies will go on & then you will feel helpless & alone.