INTRODUCTION

Most people come to several crossroads in their lives. Why is one path taken rather than another? Many experience ‘dark nights of the soul’. Some emerge strengthened with clear purpose, others, presumably not the ones who write about such experiences, are possibly crushed. When, in June 1893, en route from Durban to Pretoria to assist Dadda Abdulla and Company in a legal case, the young barrister Mohandas Gandhi was thrown off the train at Pietermaritzburg station because a white passenger did not want to sit next to a ‘coloured man’, Gandhi was at one of these crossroads. That winter night, shivering in the dark waiting room, Gandhi had to decide whether he should fight for his rights or return to India defeated. It could have gone either way. Gandhi had been a shy, nondescript school student whose main characteristic seemed to be truth telling, even when it caused him and others problems. Although still extremely shy, he discovered some self-respect in London when he found friends who were interested in what he had to say, but back in India he proved to be a failure as a lawyer. He was more or less escaping a future of hopelessness by taking the job in South Africa. Here he was, after only one week in the country, already facing defeat in life.