“Of course.”
“Do you like it?”
“It is quite good.”
“Well then, let us have it, Gandhi.”
I read it trembling.
Gokhale supported it.
“Unanimously passed,” cried out everyone.
“You will have five minutes to speak to it, Gandhi,” said Mr. Wacha.
The procedure was far from pleasing to me. No one had troubled to understand the resolution, everyone was in a hurry to go and, because Gokhale had seen the resolution, it was not thought necessary for the rest to see it or understand it!
The morning found me worrying about my speech. What was I to say in five minutes? I had prepared myself fairly well, but the words would not come to me. I had decided not to read my speech but to speak extempore. But the facility for speaking that I had acquired in South Africa seemed to have left me for the moment.
As soon as it was time for my resolution, Mr. Wacha called out my name. I stood up. My head was reeling. I read the resolution somehow. Someone had printed and distributed amongst the delegates copies of a poem he had written in praise of foreign emigration. I read the poem and referred to the grievances of the settlers in South Africa. Just at this moment Mr. Wacha rang the bell. I was sure I had not yet spoken for five minutes. I did not know that the bell was rung in order to warn me to finish in two minutes more. I had heard others speak for half an hour or