Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/59

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I typed in the tub until lunchtime.

At lunch Gandhi said, “Fischer, give me your bowl and I will give you some vegetables.” I told him I had eaten the mess of squash and spinach four times in two days and had no desire for more. He said, “You don’t like vegetables?”

“I don’t like the taste of these vegetables,” I replied.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “you must add plenty of salt and lemon.”

“You want me to kill the taste,” I suggested. “No,” he replied laughingly, “enrich the taste.”

“You are so non-violent,” I said. “You wouldn’t even kill a taste.”

“If that were the only thing men killed, I wouldn’t mind,” he replied.

I perspired and wiped my face and neck with a handkerchief. I turned to Gandhi and said, “Next time I am in India…” He was chewing and didn’t seem to pay any attention, so I stopped.

Without turning his head to me, Gandhi said, “Yes, the next time you are in India…?”

“You either ought to have air-conditioning in Sevagram,” I continued, “or live in the Viceroy’s palace.”

“All right,” he said as though he meant it.

I slept after lunch, then recorded my morning talk with Gandhi and later read from the lengthy report of the Simon Indian Statutory Commission,