Chapter 18 of Gandhi’s My
Experiments with Truth
SHYNESS MY SHIELD
I was
elected to the Executive Committee of the Vegetarian Society, and made it a
point to attend every one of its meetings, but I always felt tongue-tied. Dr.
Oldfield once said to me, 'You talk to me quite all right, but why is it that
you never open your lips at a committee meeting? You are a drone.' I
appreciated the banter. The bees are ever busy, the drone is a thorough idler.
And it was not a little curious that whilst others expressed their opinions at
these meetings, I sat quite silent. Not that I never felt tempted to speak. But
I was at a loss to know how to express myself. All the rest of the members
appeared to me to be better informed than I. Then I often happened that just when
I had mustered up courage to speak, a fresh subject would be started. This went
on for a long time.
Meantime a serious
question came up for discussion. I thought it wrong to be absent, and felt it
cowardice to register a silent vote. The discussion arose somewhat in this
wise. The President of the Society was Mr. Hills, proprietor of the Thames Iron
Works. He was a puritan. It may be said that the existence of the Society
depended practically on his financial assistance. Many members of the Committee
were more or less his proteges. Dr. Allinson of vegetarian fame was also a
member of the Committee. He was an advocate of the then new birth control
movement, and preached its methods among the working classes. Mr. Hills
regarded these methods as cutting at the root of morals. He thought that the
Vegetarian Society had for its object not only dietetic but also moral reform,
and that a man of Dr. Allinson's anti-puritanic views should not be allowed to
remain in the Society. A motion was therefore brought for his removal. The
question deeply interested me. I considered Dr. Allinson's views regarding
artificial methods of birth control as dangerous, and I believed that Mr. Hills
was entitled, as a puritan, to oppose him. I had also a high regard for Mr.
Hills and his generosity. But I thought it was quite improper to exclude a man
from a vegetarian society simply because he refused to regard puritan morals as
one of the objects of the society. Mr. Hills' view regarding the exclusion of
anti-puritans from the society was personal to himself, and it had nothing to
do with the declared object of the society, which was simply the promotion of
vegetarianism and not of any system of morality. I therefore held that any
vegetarian could be a member of the society irrespective of his views on other
morals.
There
were in the Committee others also who shared my view, but I felt myself
personally called upon to express my own. How to do it was the question. I had
not the courage to speak and I therefore decided to set down my thoughts in
writing. I went to the meeting with the document in my pocket. So far as I
recollect, I did not find myself equal even to reading it, and the President
had it read by someone else. Dr. Allinson lost the day. Thus in the very first
battle of the kind I found myself siding with the losing party. But I had
comfort in the thought that the cause was right. I have a faint recollection
that, after this incident, I resigned from the Committee.
This
shyness I retained throughout my stay in England. Even when I paid a social
call the presence of half a dozen or more people would strike me dumb. I once went to Ventnor with Sjt. Mazmudar.
We stayed there with a vegetarian family. Mr. Howard, the author of The Ethics of Diet, was also staying at the same wateringplace.
We met him, and he invited us to speak at a meeting for the promotion of
vegetarianism. I had ascertained that it was not considered incorrect to read
one's speech. I knew that many did so to express themselves coherently and
briefly. To speak ex
tempore would have been out of the question for me. I
had therefore written down my speech. I stood up to read it, but could not. My
vision became blurred and I trembled, though the speech hardly covered a sheet
of foolscap. Sjt. Mazmudar had to read it for me. His own speech was of course
excellent and was received with applause. I was ashamed of myself and sad at
heart for my incapacity.
My
last effort to make a public speech in England was on the eve of my departure
for home. But this time too I only succeeded in making myself ridiculous. I
invited my vegetarian friends to dinner in the Holborn Restaurant referred to
in these chapters. 'A vegetarian dinner could be had,' I said to myself, 'in
vegetarian restaurants as a matter of course. But why should it not be possible
in a non- vegetarian restaurant too?' And I arranged with the manager of the
Holborn Restaurant to provide a strictly vegetarian meal. The vegetarians
hailed the new experiment with delight. All dinners are meant for enjoyment,
but the West has developed the thing into an art. They are celebrated with
great éclat, music and speeches. And the little dinner
party that I gave was also not unaccompanied by some such display. Speeches,
therefore, there had to be. When my turn for speaking came, I stood up to make
a speech. I had with great care thought out one which would consist of a very
few sentences. But I could not proceed beyond the first sentence. I had read of
Addison that he began his maiden speech in the House of Commons, repeating 'I
conceive' three times, and when he could proceed no further, a wag stood up and
said, 'The gentleman conceived thrice but brought forth nothing.' I had thought
of making a humorous speech taking this anecdote as the text. I therefore began
with it and stuck there. My memory entirely failed me and in attempting a
humorous speech I made myself ridiculous. ‘I thank you, gentlemen, for having
kindly responded to my invitation,' I said abruptly, and sat down.
It
was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never
completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange
audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not
think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in
idle talk.
I
must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional
shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the
contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was
once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has
taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of
restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a
thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever
having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared
many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part
of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to
suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness
of man and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words
will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find
so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not
pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is
given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and
keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be
of my benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in
reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in
my discernment of truth.
1. How does Gandhi
say his own shyness has created difficulties for him in speaking?
2. What is the
positive side to shyness, in Gandhi’s opinion?
3. Has shyness ever been a problem for you? Think of a time when you were shy. Did your shyness affect you positively or negatively? Write a full length paragraph about the experience and your assessment of it following some of Gandhi’s insights.