I was drawn to Gandhiji while I was a school student. He was my role model even before I could read and understand what Gandhism is. The Mahatma’s adherence to truth, his unequivocal fight against intoxicating drinks and drugs and his genuine desire to create an India ‘where there shall be no high class and low class of people’ greatly inspired me to be a Gandhian.
When I was a college student I started reading Gandhiji’s autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth and I vehemently started campaigning against smoking and alcohol consumption among my friends. My friends had, and they still have, great respect for my idealism, but none of them were ready to subscribe to the ideals. Whenever I happened to be among them, unaware of the liquor party, they used to hide the alcohol, but they never stopped drinking.
And when I became an English tuition teacher, I picked up a gang of students who were very dear to me and tried to make them individuals who hated alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking and the use of any kind of intoxicating materials. As long as they were with me as my students, they abstained from alcohol consumption. But when they entered the wider world, alcohol successfully seduced all of them, except Sethu—my first student who transformed me into a teacher.
My failed personal crusade against alcoholism helped me see what a great man Gandhiji was. He unwaveringly fought against all kinds of social evils that dragged India backward. He was waging a war against them. At the same time he was waging a political war against the alien rulers to make India an independent nation.