“You will of course show me the resolution,” said Mr. Wacha, to cheer me up. I thanked him and left them at the next stop.
So we reached Calcutta. The President was taken to his camp with great éclat by the Reception Committee. I asked a volunteer where I was to go. He took me to the Ripon College, where a number of delegates were being put up. Fortune favoured me. Lokamanya was put up in the same block as I. I have a recollection that he came a day later.
And as was natural, Lokamanya would never be without his durbar. Were I a painter, I could paint him as I saw him seated on his bed—so vivid is the whole scene in my memory. Of the numberless people that called on him, I can recollect today only one, namely the late Babu Motilal Ghose, editor of The Amrita Bazar Patrika . Their loud laughter and their talks about the wrongdoings of the ruling race cannot be forgotten.
But I propose to examine in some detail the appointments in this camp. The volunteers were clashing against one another. You asked one of them to do something. He delegated it to another, and he in his turn to a third, and so on; and as for the delegates, they were neither here nor there.
I made friends with a few volunteers. I told them some things about South Africa, and they felt somewhat ashamed. I tried to bring home to them the secret of service. They seemed to understand, but service is no mushroom growth. It presupposes the will first and then experience. There was no lack of will on the part of those good simple-hearted young men, but their experience was nil. The Congress would meet three days every year and then go to sleep. What training could one have out of a three days’ show once a year? And the delegates were of a piece with the volunteers. They had no better or longer training. They would do nothing themselves. “Volunteer, do this,” “Volunteer, do that,” were their constant orders.