6.An Interview With Gandhi

Tree Pipe in meerschaum (late '70s)

This is an early pipe that I did for my dad who was an entertainer. Later I did one that looked like a paper birch and two that looked liked the first one but featured elliptical recessed panels on the front. One had a scene of a white tail deer leaping over a down tree and the other one had an underwater scene of a walleye swimming. That was the one design that I thought had commercial possibilities but by that time I couldn't get the raw material.

AN INTERVIEW WITH GANDHI

ARTY> Well, today we have a leader of the nonviolent approach to revolution,Mahatma Gandhi, a tiny man who starved himself many times for the enlightenment of the rest of us. I'll ask you the question I always ask. What, with the luxury of 20/20 hindsite would you do different?

GANDHI> Well, I'd like to thank you asking that, Arty. That is a very good question. The answer goes back in time to when the British first conquered us. Just like all empire builders the British were afraid of the defeated peoples. They kept enlarging their empire to prevent attacks by hostile neighbors thereby placing ancient enemies cheek by jowl. When they left there was all sorts of pent up hostility that just boiled over.

When I began to think about India's independence it seemed to me that the bigger the better. I had a vision of a peaceful country where we lived and worked together. The bigger the country the more powerful we would be. We have a lot of religions in the subcontinent and we've been living together for centuries. We should have been able to live together after the British left.

ARTY> What was different about the 1940s?

GANDHI> World War Two. We humans were tired of bloodletting. The British had been unmasked as a paper tiger when they couldn't defend their Asian colonies. I was educated by the British. I learned their beliefs and I used what I learned against them. My Muslim countrymen were suspicious of my leadership. I was too British, too Hindu, not enough them. While I thought about a greater India, the Muslims didn't. It never occurred to me that their hopes and dreams might not include living in a Hindu state. I should have instantly embraced my Muslim neighbors as fellow freedom fighters and understood their desire to have their own country, just as I did. It should have been a joyous coming to being on the world stage of two new good neighbors. And we could have coerced the British, maybe even the UN to oversee the mass migrations so there would be minimum trouble. They owed us that.

But I only pretended to be a humble peasant. My, my. When I found out how much attention I could get for dressing like a peasant and not eating I knew how to work the system. It was a good cause to be sure but I reached the semi divine status early and I did see myself as leading a revolutionary new type of revolution. You only get to lead a nation to freedom once. It was too much of a temptation to be another George Washington. Then the Muslims seemed to come to the fight years after I did, and they complicated things tremendously but I should have seen it coming and made sure my Muslim friends felt they were an integral part of the independence process.

ARTY> Where is nonviolence headed?

GANDHI> Well, it seems to be fading in the past. Everybody's armed now with cheap killing machines. Do you remember how I advocated a spinning wheel in every home as a strategy for combatting poverty in India? There are still people alive who remember me saying that. Now it should be a computer in every home instead of an AK47 in every home.

ARTY> One last question Mr Gandhi. First, thanks for stopping by 20/20 hindsite. I read once that as an old man you had a habit of climbing into bed with naked young women. Any comment?

GANDHI> Ah, Arty, you cannot fault me for that. There was no sex involved. They're just so soft and warm and they smell so good and when they laugh the sun shines. They volunteered, in fact they actually competed for the honor and they helped keep me alive and happy while I starved myself for a good cause. It took a lot of TLC to keep me alive.