You Would Never Assume That This Failure Would Become Mahatma Gandhi: The Untold Story

If you thought that Gandhi was born leader and won an award for best student, you are 180 degrees away from the truth.

Not only Gandhi was an ordinary student, he was very quiet and shy teenager. None of it stopped him from becoming “Father of India.”

It’s a great thing to know that almost every genius soared through mediocre environment and possessions. Gandhi was no different.

The Family Disappointment

Born in a middle class family, Gandhi possessed low self-esteem when he was younger. Because of his insecurity, he rarely stayed back after school to interact with other classmates. He had fear of being pushed.

The same reason continued hunting Gandhi in his unhappy marriage (when he was only 13 years old) as his young lady had difficulties to get used to his jealous and stringent fit of temper.

He was failure at school too. After his struggle to graduate from high school, he moves on to study medicine, only to fail badly and forced to quit. He was only 5 months in that university.

Trying to be his angel saviors, his family made decision to send him to England to study law, a direction they believed he would be able to cope with. They gathered all the resources and they sent Gandhi off to London on a fresh new start.

Gandhi in London

He had difficulty adjusting to the weather in London which was also his problem and he was criticized for his inappropriate clothing and his poor English language.

However, Gandhi was going with his head against a wall. He was working very hard, trying to make up for everything. He even started additional activities such as French, dancing violin, and elocution. He also added a couple of suits in his dressing room.

As life beat Gandhi, he started losing all his money gradually.

To save some coins, he gave up on his hotel for smaller room and walked instead of travelling with public transport. Even his diet was switched from English foods to vegetarian fare. More interesting is that the new adopted habits formed the basis of Gandhi’s lessons on health and living afterwards.

Debut in Court

It seemed like London didn’t fit for Gandhi’s vision. He couldn’t wait to return to his homeland. Right after he passed his exams, he made his way back, only to be told that his mother had passed away while he was traveling.

Right after, he made decision to leave Bombay to forget about his grief. Life hit Gandhi again. Because of his incompetent knowledge about Indian law, he had difficulty getting a case.

When he finally got one case, he had anxiety of stage at the last moment he left the courtroom all of a sudden, leaving his colleagues to handle the case. It was a total disaster.

Becoming His True Self – Turning Point

His total failure as a lawyer sent Gandhi back home again. Being helped from his brothers, Gandhi came to a decision to go to South Africa and take up a clerical position, with the cost to leave his wife and 2 sons in his homeland.

Africa was no rainbows and sunshine’s too. Instead of being a cleric, he realized that he was alerted for a civil suit that required strong accounting knowledge and detailed legal analysis.

The life and harsh discrimination against Indians in the country threw Gandhi in the corner to make a decision: whether he will pack his bags and leave South Africa, or stay to fight the case. One day everything changed.

While he was on the first class in the train to another town, he was ordered to move to the cargo department. When he denied, he was forcefully driven off the carriage. As he waited in the next available coach, his mind was flooded with present circumstances.

He suddenly realized that despite of him changing countries and spheres in life, he was unable to face the challenges ahead. He was brutally honest that being a coward and running away from his fears will never get him anywhere. He decided to help people fight for the rights they deserve.

The Lawyer And The Human Rights Campaigner

He started working really hard on the case, checking the details comprehensively. With his diligence and ability to preserve harsh times, he got vast knowledge about the case and interacted against the disciplinary nature of the lawsuit by persuading his client and the other party to settle on a friendly agreement away from court.

His ability to handle the suit gave Gandhi respect of the Indian community and he was asked to reschedule his departure back home to help them on the upcoming case to fight for the rights of Indian settlers in the country. That caused to accelerate his involvement into politics.

He would suggest political negotiations with British leaders whom he stated as his equal, work with people from different castes, religions and nationalities to achieve harmony in the world, fight for his country’s independence and achieve the highest standards for his people. All his work for civil rights, India’s Independence and active propagation of love and peace wouldn’t have been possible if not for his firm conviction that all people possess the innate capability to change inside, in the pursuit of what’s right.

Whatever You Are, You can ALWAYS Switch Different Road

Maybe if Gandhi wasn’t so shy and introvert failure, he wouldn’t be able to evolve with just one thought of “It’s enough.” As he waited the next available coach, he literally changed himself and made a world difference just by a single though.

You cannot break a habit slowly. You have to decide to be different if you want to possess things you’ve never had. Consistent work and perseverance gave Gandhi the ability to claim peace under impossible circumstances.

In whatever situation you are now, you have the power to change everything just by implementing righteous thinking.

Leave your failures aside and learn from this phenomenal stories that can literally change your life for better.

“A woman once came to Gandhi ji and asked him to please tell her son to give up eating sugar. Gandhi ji asked the woman to bring the boy back in a week. Exactly one week later the woman returned, and Gandhi said to the boy, “Please give up eating sugar.” The woman thanked the Mahatma, and, as she turned to go, asked him why he had not said those words a week ago.” Gandhi ji replied, “Because a week ago, I had not given up eating sugar.”

The Untold Story

One incident occurred when Mahatma Gandhi was travelling in a small train uphill to Darjeeling. Darjeeling is a hill station in India, and you have a small train that goes there. It is a narrow gauge train. When the train was moving up the hill, somewhere, the engine disconnected from the coaches. So the engine went ahead and the coaches and started sliding backward.

Imagine a big hilly terrain with coaches sliding backward. There was huge panic, as people were between life and death. Any moment the coaches could fall off the hill, and one would not even find a trace of a bone. It was the Himalayas.

While there was panic all around, Mahatma Gandhi was dictating letters, and he said to his friend who was taking letters (A guy who taught Mahatma Gandhi the scripture, Bhagavad Gita, when he came back from South Africa. And he was with him for 40 years as his tutor, and also as his writer); he used to call him Bangalori, because he was from Bangalore; ‘Bangalori, take dictation.’

His friend said, ‘Bapu (father, referring to Mahatma Gandhi), do you know what is happening? We may not be alive. We are in-between life and death. The coaches are moving backward with nothing to stop it, and its gaining speed.’

Do you know what Mahatma Gandhi said? He said, ‘Suppose we get saved, we would have wasted all this time. If we die, we die. But if we are saved, we wasted so much time? So, come on, take dictation.’

With trembling hands, his writer was taking dictation.

His friend used to say ‘Look at this old man; he would not waste a moment of his life.’