Short Stories For Everyone
Inspiring incidents from Gandhiji's Life: Selected from the book Everyone's Gandhi
(For the children in the age group of 10 to 15 years)


Gandhiji writing

SHORT STORIES FOR EVERYONE

Gandhi's inspiring short stories selected from the book Everyone's Gandhi

Editor by : Rita Roy


Table of Contents

  1. All for A Stone
  2. A Car And A Pair of Binoculars
  3. My Master's Master
  4. Enter The Monkeys
  5. Premchand Quits His Job
  6. Returning His Medals
  7. Basic Pen
  8. Prisoner No. 1739
  9. Gandhi's White Brother
  10. Who Saw Gandhi?
  11. An Early School
  12. An Unusual March
  13. Spiritual Heir
  14. The Less You Have The More You Are
  15. An Old Goat Talks
  16. The Phoenix Settlement
  17. Gandhi in Amsterdam
  18. Something To Be Shy About?
  19. Gandhiji The Matchmaker
  20. Gandhi's Army
  21. Dandi Snippet
  22. Hiding Something
  23. The Image Maker
  24. Creative Reader
  25. Postcards To The Rescue
  26. A Non-violent Satyagraha 214 Years Ago
  27. Gandhi And Delhi
  28. Gandhiji's Constructive Programme
  29. Gandhi Looks At Leprosy
  30. Baba Amte
  31. They Gave Peace A Chance
  32. From Mahatma To God
  33. Customs Are Out of Fashion
  34. The Man 'Charlie' Wanted To Meet
  35. It Came Naturally To Him
  36. Crossing The Sea of Narrow-Mindedness
  37. Wear Clothes As They Should Be Worn
  38. Education: For Life, Through Life
  39. The Abode of Joy
  40. To Cling to A Belief
  41. The Fruit of A Child's Labour
  42. An Ideal Prisoner
  43. How A Film Became Something More
  44. Gandhi: Beyond India
  45. Gandhi's Life-Saving Medicine
  46. Understanding The Mechanics of Life With Gandhi
  47. The Lokmanya and The Mahatma
  48. Man's Gift To Nature
  49. Gurudev And His Mahatma
  50. One-man Boundary Force
  51. What Does Mahatma Gandhi's Message Mean To Me?
  52. Let's Play Together
  53. Children's Response To Conflict
  54. Beggar By Choice
  55. The Better Half
  56. Uncle Gandhi
  57. The Watch: An Instrument For Regulating Life
  58. Light The Lamp of Your Mind
  59. Gandhi's Bet!
  60. Gandhi Feeling At Home In The Kitchen
  61. What Is Simplicity?
  62. Bapu And The Sardar
  63. The Power of Quality
  64. Gandhi: The Teenager!

Chapter 13: Spiritual Heir

Rita Roy

On 7 June 1916, a young man of twenty waited at the gates of Gandhi's ashram at Kochrab, in Ahmedabad, for an interview with him. Later given the name of Vinoba Bhave, Vinayak Narhari Bhave was a Chitpavan Brahmin from Maharashtra. He had been drawn to the Mahatma, on reading reports of his stirring speech at the foundation stone ceremony of the Benares Hindu University in February that same year.
Gandhi had invited him to his Ashram for a detailed discussion. Their first meeting was in the kitchen where Gandhi was cleaning and cutting vegetables. He welcomed the newcomer warmly and offered him full membership of the Ashram.
The hard and austere life of the Ashram did not deter Vinoba. He participated quietly and painstakingly in all its activities. It was only when he was heard reciting verses from the Gita and Upanishads early One morning that the inmates of the Ashram came to know of his profound knowledge of Sanskrit and religious scriptures.
After some months, Vinoba's younger brother Balkoba also joined the Ashram. It was Balkoba who once found the 12-year-old son of the Ashram sweeper weeping when he was unable to lift the pots of night soil. He helped the young boy with his work and Vinoba, too, joined him. This created a sensation in the Ashram. "How could two Brahmins take to such work?" Many, including Gandhi's elder sister, left the Ashram.
Vinoba's humility and self-effacing ways made him relatively unknown till 1940. An article by Gandhiji in the Harijan, his weekly paper, drew public attention to the man who was later to become his spiritual heir. Gandhi described him as a man who "believes that silent constructive work with civil disobedience in the background is far more effective than the already crowded political platform."
Later, it was his work for the improvement of villages that was to make Vinoba famous. His Bhoodan (land gift) movement that took him from village to village in an attempt to find a solution to the problem of unequal distribution of land, was started in Pochampally (better known for its sarees!) in Andhra Pradesh.
This was in April 1951, when the land problem was so bad that it led to murders, fights and fires raging all around. On a padayatra, returning from Shivrampally, Vinoba camped at Pochampally. Here he held a prayer meeting attended by people from different walks of life. When he referred to the land problem, one of the Harijans said, " We work on the land with the sweat of our brow, but we have no land."
Vinoba asked them how much land they required. They quickly calculated: "80 acres". He, in turn, appealed to the conscience of the audience. Was there any among them generous enough? After a minute's silence, one gentleman, Ramachandra Reddy, got up, and offered, not eighty but one hundred acres.