Mahatma Gandhi went from city
to city, village to village collecting funds for the Charkha Sangh.
During
one of his tours he addressed a meeting in Orissa. After his speech a poor
old woman got up.
She was bent with age, her hair was grey and her clothes
were in tatters. The volunteers tried to stop her, but she fought her way to
the place where Gandhiji was sitting.
"I must see him," she insisted and
going up to Gandhiji touched his feet. Then from the folds of her sari she
brought out a copper coin and placed it at his feet. Gandhiji picked up the
copper coin and put it away carefully.
The Charkha Sangh funds were under
the charge of Jamnalal Bajaj. He asked Gandhiji for the coin but Gandhiji
refused. "I keep cheques worth thousands of rupees for the Charkha Sangh,"
Jamnalal Bajaj said laughingly
"yet you won't trust me with a copper coin."
"This copper coin is worth much more than those thousands," Gandhiji said.
"If a man has several lakhs and he gives away a thousand or two, it doesn't
mean much. But this coin was perhaps all that the poor woman possessed.
She
gave me all she had. That was very generous of her. What a great sacrifice
she made. That is why I value this copper coin more than a crore of rupees."
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