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A Law Student in London While not yet eighteen years of age, Mohandas Gandhi came face-to-face with the harsh realities of life. In addition to his intense grief, trauma, guilt, and shame related to his father’s death, he had to carry on his young shoulders the extraordinary financial burden of his family. In the Indian cultural context, the eldest son usually performs not only his father’s shra -ddh (death rites) but must also bear the financial burden of the family. Even though Mohandas was the youngest son, he still took upon himself the cross of filial expectations for two reasons. One, because he had known all along that his father held high hopes only in him. Even while dying, Kaba Gandhi’s last wish was, “Manu will be the pride of our family; he will bring luster to my name” (Pyarelal 1965, 1, 202). The deceased father’s expectations now became his favorite son’s moral obligation. Two, ever since Mohandas was a little boy, he had admired the story of the devoted son Shravana; this was his chance to be Shravana. Among all Kaba’s sons, only Mohandas had shown some academic promise. Kaba knew the times had changed, and that none of his sons could ever hope to become a prime minister like him or his ancestors without a respectable college degree that offered education in English. Proficiency in English brought not only prestige but also high position in British colonial India. Determined to fulfill his father’s dream and to keep the prime ministry in the family, Mohandas studied hard and passed his matriculation examination in 1887 with fairly good marks. He was now eligible for admission in any well-established college with high-quality English educational standards. Although the best choices for Mohandas would have been the well-reputed 6 73 Elphinston College in Bombay or Gujarat College in Ahmedabad, both cities were too far away from Rajkot; the railway journey then was too cumbersome and expensive. However, there was the newly opened Shamaldas College in Bhavnagar, which not only had the best English faculty (of Anglo-Indian and Parsee professors) but also was no farther than ninety miles from Rajkot. Thus, because of the formidable distance of Bombay and Ahmedabad, and because of dwindling family finances, Mohandas had to settle for joining Shamaldas College in Bhavnagar. For the first time, this provincial Kathiawari boy left his home, hometown , family, and friends. Gandhi has described in his autobiography how lonely and ignorant he felt in his new environment: “I went, but found myself entirely at sea. Everything was difficult. I could not follow, let alone taking interest in, the professors’ lectures” (1948, 52). One reason Mohandas found his courses so difficult was that until then, he had not been exposed to instruction in the English language, much less the stiff and formal Macaulayan style of English college lectures of his time. Mohandas again blamed himself for being “so raw” as not to understand his erudite, Western-educated professors. At this time he began to suffer from headaches and nosebleeds. Maladjusted, homesick, and psychosomatically sick, Mohandas quit college after only one term and returned home to face a yet bigger question—what to do now. For the dejected prodigal son Mohandas, who came home emptyhanded without earning a degree from college, his father’s trusted friend and family adviser, Mavji Dave, seemed to be a messenger of God, or at least a spokesman of his father’s voice. Mavji Dave advised Putliba to send Mohandas to London, England, to become a barrister-at-law. Mavji argued that to be a “London-returned barrister” would not only make the whole Gandhi family and community proud of Mohandas, but would also enhance his chances of becoming the next prime minister of Rajkot. After all, was that not the last, supreme wish of his late father, Kaba Gandhi? Mavji’s advice could not have been more timely, for every aspiring young Indian male in those days dreamed of going to London and coming home as a barrister. Mavji also pointed out the futility of earning a lackluster B.A. degree that would make Mohandas no more than a clerk, whereas a bar-at-law degree from London would put him at par with the high society of both the Western and Indian elite; it would also improve the family’s economic and social status. Mavji’s own son, Kevalram, had earned his law degree from London...

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