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Brief Notes on the first three chapters of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s Autobiography

My Experiments with Truth

Gandhi begins the first chapter by writing about his birth and parentage and he begins to

state about his grandfather Uttamchand Gandhi who was also known as Ota Gandhi and he was

married a second time having lost his first wife. He had four songs by his first wife and two children

from his second wife. Gandhi then talks about his father Karamchand Gandhi who was also known

as Kaba Gandhi who had married four times, since he had lost his previous wives each time by

death. Gandhi’s father Kaba Gandhi was a truthful, brave, and generous person, but was short

tempered too. Kaba Gandhi married the fourth time when he was forty years of age and he did not

have much education, yet he had much experience in practical affairs and gave solutions to question

and managed hundreds of men. He was not much religious, but he visited temples, he also read the

Gita and used to repeat some of the verses aloud every day at the time of worship. Gandhi then talks

about his mother, who was very much religious, and was also well informed about all the political

matters. Gandhi then writes that he was born at Porbandar which was also known as Sudamapuri on

2 October 1869. Gandhi also states that he had some difficulty to get through multiplication tables.

The second chapter talks about the Gandhi’s childhood. He states that he was put in a

primary school at almost by the age of seven. He then writes that he remembers saying that he never

told a lie to his teachers or to his class mates. Gandhi also stated that he was as very shy and he

avoided company. The only friends of his were his books and his lessons. He would always either

be at home or at school, because he wished to talk to no body, and hence he was afraid, if anyone

made fun of him. Gandhi then states an incident which happened once in his school, when the

Educational Inspector Mr Giles had visited their school. In the incident Gandhi misspelt the word

“kettle” with which Gandhi’s teacher wanted to help him, but Gandhi was not able to cope up with

the art of copying.

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The third chapter of the autobiography is titled, “Child Marriage” and Gandhi begins this

chapter by writing that he had not wished, “to write about this chapter” (Gandhi 25). Gandhi then

records the age in which he got married, which was was at the age of thirteen, at just the start of his

teenage years. This was done thrice to Gandhi and he did not knew it too, since it was an

arrangement between the parents, and children were not brought into the discussions about it. The

first two girls chosen for Gandhi died, and the third girl was married to Gandhi when he was almost

at the age of seven. Gandhi states of marriage stating that:

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 their neighbours.

(Gandhi 27-8)

Finally, it was decided that a triple marriage to be happening, which includes Gandhi’s and

his other two brothers, to be happening in the same time, since, “money could be freely spent if it

had only to be spent once instead of thrice” (Gandhi 28) and Gandhi also states that, “It was only

through these preparations that we got warning of the coming event” (Gandhi 28). He then states

writes about the, “good clothes to wear, drum beating, marriage processions, rich dinners and a

strange girl to play with. … There are some amusing details of the preliminaries to the final drama -

e.g., smearing our bodies with turmeric paste …” (Gandhi 28). Gandhi then explains an another

accident that happened during the marriage ceremony, that had happened to his father, yet as the

accident happened the marriage date was not postponed. Gandhi’s father, on the other hand, put a

brave face through he was injured and took full part in the procedures and process of the weddings.
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Gandhi then narrates the incidents that took place in the marriage of his and how he and his wife

began to live together. They both were indeed shy even to face each other and were also nervous to

talk to each other, yet they gradually began to know each other and speak freely, both were also of

the same the age, yet Gandhi in the end of the third chapter states that he, “took no time in assuming

the authority of a husband” (Gandhi 30). These are certain brief notes on the first three chapters of

an autobiography by Gandhi.

Work Cited

Gandhi, M. K., An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Translated by

Mahadev Desai, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House.