1. Ba's Supreme Self-satisfaction

Bapu was an educated, England-returned gentleman, and a great national leader too, while Ba was illiterate. Furthermore, he made now and again radical changes in his mode of living and thinking and carried them out in all earnestness as well. Thus, Ba had to pass through a perpetual ordeal in order to keep pace with him. So many a person thought that she must be very unhappy, indeed. Once someone sympathizing with her, therefore, wrote to her to this effect. Ba replied, 4'I have been deeply pained by your letter. We have never met each other before for a sufficiently long time to talk over such matters. So I do not know how you have deduced that Gandhiji has made my life miserable! Did you ever visit me and see me looking sad or starving? No one in the whole world has a husband like mine. He is honoured by all for his persistent pursuit of Truth. Thousands seek his counsel in their affairs. He has never pulled me up without a valid reason, though he always tells me if I am any time at fault or short-sighted or not very thoughtful. He respects me, while in so many other homes there are so often quarrels. If I am held in high esteem among friends it is because of him. My relatives love me deeply. So nobody is going to believe you when you say that I am unhappy. I am not like you, modern wives, who wish to lord it over their husbands, and if the latter do not surrender themselves to them they go their own different ways. But such a thing ill- becomes a true Hindu wife. Parvati even wished that Shankar would be her husband life after life."