For a long time, I didn't quite understand the infatuation with Gandhi. As a teenager, I knew little about him, beyond the fact that he fiercely opposed Great Britain's colonial rule through non-violence and was important enough to be known by one name (like Madonna and Prince).

I've been digging into Gandhi's life a little more deeply after stumbling on Eknath Easwaran's 2011 book, Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Himself to Change the World, in part because of my own growing interest in the philosophy of non-violence. 

A Brief History

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in "a dark, windowless ground-floor room" of a modest home in the city of Porbandar, India on Oct. 2. 1869. The fourth (and final) child of Karamchand and Putlibai Gandhi, Mohandas was described as a "restless" child and voracious reader of Indian classics.

At age 9, the family moved to the smaller city of Rajkot after Karamchand became an advisor to the city's ruler, and Mohandas entered a local school. He was an average student, shy and bookish. Gandhi married at age 13 as custom demanded (his bride was 14) and the couple would eventually have five children (four of which survived, all sons).

In 1888, a year after graduating high school, Mohandas enrolled at an unexceptional college in Bombay—and promptly quit. Several family members, however, encouraged him to continue his studies abroad—in England. Putlibai Gandhi did not like the idea of her son leaving his family to study in another country, but she agreed to the request after Mohandas promised her that he'd abstain from women, spirits, and meat.