“Breaking News! Indian citizen Mohandas Gandhi is organizing a protest to reduce British taxes on salt, 36 years after he made a compromise with the South African government about Indian suffrage. This was accomplished by what Gandhi and what other Hinduist followers consider satyagraha; or civil disobedience.” I switched the small, tattered, black and white TV off. I was amazed how one leader could bring down a strong government with a big military force, just with civil disobedience. Ever since I was born, we were controlled over British colonial rule. My parents were forced to work as peasants, because all the high-paying jobs were taken by whites. Because of inaccessibility to medical assistance, my mom died. My father was so stricken with…
I looked around my messy house. My stomach made weird noises I don’t think it should have been making. I could tell it was because of the freshness of the food I ate. Something was lingering in my mind I couldn’t stop thinking about. I had this strange urge to go and help Gandhi. It wasn’t a want, it was a need. There was this fire building up inside of my stomach ever since I was dropped at the orphanage, to when Uncle Romonaivsten nurtured me and set me off to my own life, all the way to now. Uncle Romonaivsten was my “adopted father” who took care of me and gave me a lot of money so I could live a life of my own. He was a very rich British businessman and had the softest heart of anybody I met. He felt sorry for me at the orphanage, and adopted me. The majority of my happiest memories are with him. I blamed my parents’ death on the British for taxing them to poverty. They treated us like we were a lower class. This was a golden opportunity for me to avenge my parent’s death. I felt crazy, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. All those years just living in my house that I didn’t even buy for myself, and not standing up to the one thing I thought was wrong. I was probably driven crazy like my dad; but I am not going to cowardly suicide like him, I am going to stand up to this regime. I went into my bedroom and started packing up a duffel bag. I put some clothes, a towel, toothpaste, and some other things I always take with me when I go places. I took a rickshaw to the airport. Emotions of hatred and sorrow were tearing me apart. On the way to the airport, I saw poverty in India at its worst. Kids washing cars so they could feed their family. Shoe shiners plagued with malnutrition working for plump, well-fed, British. The dirt roads poorly maintained. At last, when I couldn’t watch any longer, we reached the airport. I booked a ticket for tomorrow. All of my actions were quick, sudden, and hasty, but I didn’t…
