Gender Inequality

8 Pages 1991 Words

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He was about five when his father was appointed dewan to the Rana of Rajkot, but the dewan’s family stayed behind in Pobandar for about two years before moving to Rajkot. In Rajkot Gandhi and his brothers attended first a local primary school and then Alfred High School. He was again a “mediocre student,” but punctual and complained if breakfast was late “because it will prevent me from going on with my studies.” He was shy, self-conscious about his frail constitution, and avoided all company. “My books and lessons were my sole companions.” At the end of the school day he ran back home because he could not bear to talk to anybody. “I was even afraid lest anyone should poke fun at me.” At school he was required to do gymnastics and play cricket, but he had no interest in either. He preferred long solitary walks or playing a simple Indian street game called gilli danda, which consists of striking a short, sharpened wooden peg with a stick.
Alfred High School, Rajkot, the secondary school in the area, prepared students for college. English was taught in the very first year at this school, and in the upper high school all subjects were taught in English. “The tyranny of English,” as Gandhi puts it, was great and this difficulty was increased by reason of the fact that “the teacher’s own English was by no means without blemish.”
Gandhi, still a schoolboy, is now at the stage where he has a distaste for reading beyond his schoolbooks. Doing the daily homework was an important part of his schedule, “becaus...