On his capacity to take things lightly he had to say "If I had no sense of humour the attacks I had to face would have killed me long ago. I have abiding faith in God and He guides my footsteps. I do not care what the people say to me. I take it lightly and can laugh even with those who laugh at me. This is what keeps me going."
Even when ill, Gandhi used to keep a smiling face and could laugh heartily too. This habit of his made many of his companions doubt whether he was really ill.
During one of his illnesses, a homeopathic doctor wanted to find out his symptoms when he had blood pressure. The doctor interrogated him carefully.
"What about your memory?" he asked.
"As rotten as you can imagine. I have lost the memory for details; if you can give me the skill for repeating what I read once, I shall become your unpaid advertising agent", he concluded with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Do you remember your visit to my hospital at Hardwar?"
"Yes."
"Then, your memory is good!"
"No, I have a poor memory. I do not remember you at all."
The doctor then recorded "temperamental, very intelligent, given to philosophic studies" and showed it to Gandhi.
Gandhi put a question mark on the statement 'temperamental', and passed it on to Dr. B.C. Roy who seeing it remarked "to these you should add, 'the habit to question any allegation of virtue.'"
"Oh, it is modesty", said the doctor.
"Modesty has never been my weakness" interposed Gandhi amidst a peal of laughter from the visitors around his bed.
When Mr. Horace Alexander, a journalist, was leaving India for England after a round of talks he asked Gandhi what he should say to the Britishers.
Gandhi lightly answered "You must tell them to get off our backs."
Both laughed but both were aware of the seriousness so lightly referred to by Gandhi.
Again when Gandhi was in London, a postman walked a long way to see him. At that time the Prime Minister of England also wanted to see Gandhi. Gandhi was asked whom he would see first.
He at once used a pun to settle the question: "I will see the man of letters first; you see, a statesman can wait, for that is his job. He is always waiting till circumstances force him to move."
Gandhi exchanged many sallies of wit with his poet friend Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate.
"I am seventy now and, so, I am considerably older than you" said Rabindranath Tagore.
"But" said Gandhi with a hearty smile, "While an old man of sixty cannot dance, a young poet of seventy can dance."
Gandhi said that his frequent rest in jails gave him a chance to keep fit in his old age. Envying this prescription, Tagore said, "You are getting ready for another arrest cure. I wish they gave me one."
"But you don't misbehave" laughed Gandhi.