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not that stupid. I am not a Mahatma Gandhi. I am absolutely against him. People like Mahatma Gandhi are responsible for poverty in the world.
Yes, nobody can ask such a question in Gandhi's commune. If you go there you will simply feel sad and sorry. Still the small ashram exists where Gandhi used to live. Gandhi's son Ramdas was very much interested in me, so once he invited me. I went there -- it was after Gandhi's death. Thirty, thirty-five people were there -- the whole group was there that had lived with Gandhi -- and I told Ramdas, "Why are you torturing these people? This is sheer masochism and nothing else. In the name of poverty, in the name of simplicity, you have deprived these people of life completely." What they were eating was absolutely tasteless, because taste, in India, for the religious man, is one of the things to be abandoned. Mahavira has given five great principles: one of the five great principles is tastelessness. Great principles! With truth, nonviolence, nonpossession, nonstealing... TASTELESSNESS.
And of course Mahatma Gandhi improved upon it. It is not only tasteless, it is nauseating. In India there is a tree called the neem, which is the bitterest tree in the whole world. Its leaves are so bitter, once you have tasted it you will never forget it for a few lives at least. Now, it was a rule in Gandhi's ashram that neem chutney -- neem sauce -- should be provided for everyone. Another rule for the ascetic in India is that nothing should be left on your plate; you cannot leave anything, you have to eat everything. So it was not possible that you could leave that big cup full of neem.
When one American, Louis Fisher, was visiting Mahatma Gandhi -- and he was very much attracted to his philosophy; he wrote the most beautiful book on Gandhi -- he was a special guest, so Gandhi himself took him to the kitchen. That was a great privilege -- somebody sitting by the side of Gandhi to eat. He saw this cup full of something green; he asked, "What is it?"
Gandhi said, "This is the most precious thing. Taste it." He tasted it; he had never tasted anything like this. And he saw Gandhi eating it so happily, and everybody
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