MENDING TORN CLOTHES

The dress that Gandhi wore was the bare minimum. He had a short dhoti, often called a loin cloth, and a shawl which he used to cover his chest and back when necessary. He believed he had no right to wear more when the ordinary villager had nothing more and when the village women often had to make do with one sari. One day, on one of his tours he found a woman draped in a drenched sari. Half of it was draped round her body, and the other half was stretched out and tied to a small tree. There she stood in the sun. Gandhi asked Kasturba, his wife, to find out why the woman was standing in the sun in this manner. She was told that the woman was wearing the only sari she had. So, this was the only way in which she could wear a clean sari. Gandhi was moved by this account, and decided that he had no right to wear an elaborate dress when those whom he represented, and wanted to serve hardly had anything to hide their nakedness. But Gandhi was quite concerned with cleanliness. In fact, cleanliness was a passion with him, and he wanted to be impeccable in whatever he did or whatever he wore. He was therefore fastidious about the cleanliness of his clothes and the manner in which he wore them. He could not bear the sight of people who were slovenly or wore torn clothes when the tear could easily be stitched or darned. He had trained himself in stitching, darning, fixing buttons and such other first-aid work that clothes need. One day, an associate of Gandhi went to attend to his usual chores with Gandhi. Gandhi pointed out to a tear in his shirt around the collar. The associate tried to explain that he could not get it mended because his wife was not well. Gandhi replied: "A normally neat, clean and well dressed man like you should not become careless. it is not compulsory to wear a shirt, but if you do so, the shirt should be clean and properly stitched. Unclean and torn clothing signifies laziness, ignorance and a lack of culture. A worker should know at least how to mend his own clothes, if not how to tailor them."
Source Based on Bapu As I Saw Him : R. N. Chaudhari
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