Matwad - Dandi Beach -
“Who knows the Salt and its solution, knows the hidden secret of the Ancient Sages.”
It is almost precisely one year to the day when, on November 22, 2016, I was awakened to Gandhi upon seeing the photograph of him grasping a handful of salt.
I dress in white as I did on Day One of this Walk. It’s a quiet, dewy morning and I feel well rested but also a little anxious. I’m not sure that I’m ready for the Walk to reach its geographical destination. I’m under its spell and I don’t want to wake up unless something deep within myself has been truly altered by the experience. I may not have a great epiphany today. Then what will I carry with me when I return home?
We begin with the remaining miles from yesterday and the road continues to be just as beautiful, lined with shade trees, greenery and feathery grasses, the unfortunate litter in the ditches. Suddenly I notice a star-shaped silhouette suspended midair between the fence line and low hanging branches. Its size doesn’t seem possible and I approach it for a closer look, confirming it is indeed a spider, a golden orb spider, the anaconda of arachnids! She’s not singular. I see several patiently spread-eagled at the centre of their giant webs. I see charkhas, the manual spinning wheels on which Gandhi and his Satyagrahis spun their daily quota of cotton. As we get closer to the sea the landscape changes, the shrubs now brittle in the salty soil. Another dog joins in, whiter than the previous dogs that have escorted us, bleached by the sea air. Sweet Tahir has never seen the sea and is especially animated today, tagging behind in the van, giddy, offering to drive us, wanting to get there sooner, seemingly unaware of the solemnity these contemplative, closing miles mean to us. I want to slow my steps, give myself time to witness and recall, stall the arrival. I have thought of the Satyagrahis daily, imagined the grueling conditions of their March in comparison to the ease of mine. This morning their presence is palpable. Satyagraha, truth-force building strength over the course of the March, received a vital tempering when it met with the sea.
We approach the entrance to the beach at 11:30. Tahir parks the van, snack vendors stand in wait at their stalls but there are no customers. All is quiet. A sign on the fence instructs visitors to remove their shoes, not to litter. A steep staircase leads down to the beach, transporting me back to the staircase at the Sabarmati ashram, and I sit to untie my shoelaces. I look up, taking in my first impression of the beach. It is vast, the tide low, the light flat on the dark silty sand, the water listless. It seems sapped of its force and I wonder if there is anything left there for my own temperance.
Is this the finish line? Where is the drama, the picturesque, the proof?
Do I feel letdown? Am I disappointed?
No. The very ordinariness of the place is what makes it more meaningful. I recognize my aspiration to be here and the fact that I am.
In 1930, the police had been instructed to destroy the salt flats on Dandi Beach, mixing the salt into the mud prior to Gandhi’s arrival on April 6. This being November, the days are not sufficiently hot to evaporate the tidal flats where salt crystals form. There are fine patches of white film on the sand that could be salt or perhaps just sea foam. I stoop and grasp a handful.
Gandhi chose salt as the objective for the Satyagraha because salt was vital to each and every Indian, rich and poor, regardless of religion. It was the common symbol for the oppression India endured under British Colonialism. Britain held a monopoly over the collection and manufacturing of salt and charged a tax on its sale through the British Salt Act . Salt was the political symbol for liberation (self-government) but salt also has social and spiritual connotations- fidelity, communal solidarity, preservation, truthfulness. Truth was the liberator of man both politically and spiritually, hence Satyagraha, translated as Truth-force or Soul-force. It was in seeking the more concealed meanings of salt that led me to the photograph of Gandhi. As I walk to to the sea I am contemplating the alchemical salt, the salt “that arises from the purest sources, the sun and the sea” and Soul-force, that which tempers the mind for the perfection of the body of humankind. Gandhi liked to say, “The body should be controlled by the mind and the mind by the soul.”
The beach is barely populated but we walk together towards the waterline. I switch on the recorder on my phone to capture the sounds of our voices, our breathing, then simply the steady pace of six bare feet crossing the sand.
The sea is not going to meet me half way.
Wading in I feel the water seeping up the hem of my white cotton robe.
I toss the handful of salty grains into the Arabian Sea, sealing my pact between Gandhi’s Message and my Life.
photo credit: Erico Hiller
Thanks to my friends Greg Polk and Himanshu Dube
for their support and for sharing their invaluable research on the Dandi Path today.
visit: https://retracinggandhisaltmarch.com