Bhai Shankerlal referred to the void created by Panditji's passing away. It is not surprising that I am pained because Panditji is no more among us.
          When I sent the late Maganlal [Gandhi] to Pandit Vishnu Digambar [Paluskar] for acquiring for the newly established Satyagraha Ashram a good music teacher, the old Pandit knew whom he had to recommend. Pandit Khare justified his choice and filled the position to which he was called as no one else could have done. His death is likely to leave an unfillable gap. Few people who have devoted themselves to art are known to have achieved such a unique combination of devotion to art and a pure and blameless life. We have somehow accustomed ourselves to the belief that art is independent of the purity of private life. I can say with all the experience at my command that nothing could be more untrue. As I am nearing the end of my earthly life I can say that purity of life is the highest and truest art. The art of producing good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by many, but the art of producing that music from the harmony of a pure life is but achieved very rarely. Pandit Khare was one of those rare people who had achieved it in full measure. There has been no occasion when I had the slightest doubt about his purity.
         Let Gujarat continue to take the interest in music awakened by the late Panditji. I am hoping that his two children will be worthy of him and I have no doubt that his brave wife will give an example of what a dedicated life an Indian widow's can be. As for Panditji, though he died in the prime of his life, anyone would envy him his death which came to him whilst he was working in a sacred place like this, fully conscious that his sands were running out and so went with Ramanama on his lips and with the echoes of the sacred name about him. May Gujarat treasure his sweet memory.
          When an exhibition of this kind was first opened at Lucknow I had said that our exhibitions should be schools of instruction. Since then we have been progressing successfully towards the ideal and the exhibition I have just now been through and am declaring open is such an annual training school. It is not, as exhibitions of old used to be, a place of entertainment. It is a place of instruction for the hundreds of thousands of those who will be visiting it during the week or two that it will be on. It provides to the poor man who visits it a kind of victual for the next year's journey. It arms him with knowledge of an occupation which can carry him and his family through for the next year by his working at it for eight hours. It ensures the training in securing an honest livelihood to everyone who will use his or her hands and feet, no matter how ignorant or illiterate he or she may be.
           I have spent an hour this morning at the exhibition. Please don't think for a moment that there should be nothing new in it for one who is the President of the All-India Spinners' Association and who is guiding the All-India Village Industries Association. Even if you think so, I am not such a simpleton as to entertain the belief. I would like to spend not one hour, but hours there learning something new every moment. But I confess that I should not be able to earn my livelihood from an occupation that I might pick up there. At the present moment I am begging for my livelihood, which perhaps is inevitable for one like me. But I am sure that it is possible for any able-bodied man or woman to choose one of the many industries exhibited here as a means of honest livelihood.
          Shankerlal had suggested to me to point out any defects here. It is of course my duty to do so. One act of omission that I have noticed is that we do not preserve in the form of a book whatever we achieve in a year. I think we should preserve in book form pictures and detailed descriptions of new inventions and experiments so that a dynamic and experienced teacher may be able to teach a lot with its help. We should have the ability to do it. We should co-ordinate the crafts and put them before the public. We should learn this art of compiling a yearly textbook. We have not yet learnt it. Here perhaps we have not been able to fully demonstrate how every single exhibit is made. I have often said that if seven lakhs of the villages of India were to be kept alive, and if peace that is at the root of all civilization is to be achieved, we have to make the spinning-wheel the centre of all handicrafts. Thus my faith in the spinning-wheel is growing everyday and I see more and more clearly that the sun of the wheel will alone illumine the planets of other handicrafts. Now I go a step further and say that just as we go on discovering new stars and planets in the vast solar system, even so we should go on discovering fresh handicrafts everyday. But, for the sake of this thing we have to make the spinning-wheel the really life-giving sun. I made the spinning-wheel in every home a necessary condition for the inauguration of the satyagraha in Bardoli in 1921, and though I knew that the condition was far from being satisfied, I yielded to the importunities of the late Vithalbhai and inaugurated the satyagraha. What followed, you know very well. Well, I would even today ask the people of Bardoli to fulfil that condition of one wheel in every home. That will help you supplement your small income and make you self-sufficient.
         At many places in this exhibition you will see [the presence of] art. I cannot describe it to you. It will strike your eye. We shall get to see here how a particular thing could be displayed to the best advantage by exhibiting it in a certain way. Art is a means of bringing out the inner as well as the outer beauty of a thing. We have now amongst us our own Indian artist Nanda Babu from the time of the Lucknow exhibition. He showed his artistic skill then and is ever progressing. But here we have artists from Gujarat also. Just as Panditji introduced music in Gujarat, Bhai Ravishankar introduced art. Here you will see his art along with that of Kanu Desai. There are different departments of art and in each you will find it thoroughly applied. You will see the artistic skill of Vakilbehn in the khadi department.
          Now do think many times over what I have said. Do see the exhibition as often as you can and gain all the knowledge it offers and delight yourselves. The big ones of the Congress will come here and run the show; but the true Congress is in the exhibition. We all cannot become delegates but we can certainly do much of its work by studying and utilizing the exhibition.

	C.W.M.G : Vol. 72