The other Gandhi

The Ba who Tushar Gandhi grew up hearing about fervently resisted any attempt by her husband the Mahatma to teach her the languages A bone of contention between her and Bapu as he was fondly called was her requests for notebooks shares Tushar about his great grandmother Kasturba Gandhi ldquoBapu would refuse insisting that she first learn to write on a slate without making any errors It was common knowledge in the ashram that Bapu wanted to educate Ba and that she wasnrsquot making any effortsrdquo Itrsquos one of the reasons why the Gandhi family assumed that Ba was unlettered says Tushar over a video call with midday But a chance discovery around twoandahalf years ago compelled them to reconsider that notionKasturba Gandhi reading Harijan published by Mahatma Gandhi In the diary one of the most regular entries is ldquoRead newspaperrdquoldquoThe staff at the Gandhi Research Foundation in Jalgaon is constantly looking for original Gandhi material which is in need of preservation and restoration While rummaging through a trunk at the Kasturba Trust in Indore they found an old frayed diary written in Gujarati It seemed like a daytoday record of a particular time period so they sought permissions to bring it back to Jalgaon where someone who knew the language figured that it was most likely Kasturbarsquos diary from 1933rdquo says TusharThis diary entry reads ldquoPage 46 Morning rituals at present We await arrival of newspapers to see what appears in them I read the Harijan I am very anxiousrdquo 8533 MONDAY Prayers at 4 orsquoclock Read the Gita Bapujirsquos severe penance starts from today We held a prayer here I hoped I would be taken to be close to Bapu But today is the third day of his fast I have not been calledThe family however was uncertain Tushar remembers speaking to his father Arun Manilal Gandhi Barsquos grandson who had written one of the first biographies on Kasturba Gandhi His answer was a resounding ldquonordquoKasturba greeting people A rare photograph of her smiling Pics CourtesyGandhi Research Foundation JalgaonldquoMy father was confident that she couldnrsquot writerdquo he recalls But as Tushar browsed through the diary he realised that it seemed to have been written by someone who was challenged by the language ldquoThe vocabulary grammar and spellings were all over the place therersquos an instance where she calls a superintendent a lsquosuperintrsquordquo he shares ldquoIf Ba had dictated these diaries and someone else had written it such mistakes wouldnrsquot have been introducedrdquo he feels ldquoIt had to be her writingsrdquo says Tushar who at this point gets emotional in the interview ldquoWhen I started reading the diary it felt like I was sitting with Ba in her ashram and she was talking to me Itrsquos been a regret of my life that I was born too late and never got to experience Ba and Bapu first hand Now I felt an intimate connection with her Tears were streaming down my face Itrsquos also partly because of this guilt of being so blinded by Bapu that we never even acknowledged Ba who was standing on an equal footing with himrdquoKasturba at a womenrsquos rally campaigning for swadeshi khadi and for the boycott of liquorTushar transcribed the text into Gujarati before translating it into English for a new book The Lost Diary of Kastur My Ba HarperCollins India ldquoThis is the first time that people will get to hear from Kasturba and in her own wordsrdquo he says ldquoMy dilemma was whether I should impose myself on the translation or allow Kasturba to speak through the translation I decided to write in as faulty English as Barsquos original writing in Gujarati because only then the flavour would transfer to the readers People must realise that it was a big task for her to writerdquo Tushar GandhiThe diary at first glance might seem ordinary even very routine to make sense of Kasturba the wife of the Mahatma Written between January 22 and September 30 1933 it harks back to a time in history when Kasturba spent a better part of the year separated from her husband We get a peek into her daily life in Sabarmati Jail where she is arrested for participating in the satyagraha and adopting a swadeshi lifestyle before she returns to be with her husband whose fastuntodeath vow has led to the rapid deterioration of his health Her son Devadasrsquo marriage follows But the flurry of activity in her life is missing in these entries ldquoPrayers at 4 Morning rituals Gitaji is read always at half past 5 Give food to Bapujirdquo most of her entries read In the prison away from her husband she is mostly reading a newspaper taking a walk spinning strands on the charkha or waiting for his letters ldquoBa was definitely reticent about sharing Itrsquos likely to have become second nature As her husbandrsquos public identity grew she withdrew further into a shell Her role was to manage the ashrams she lived in with her husband and other community members but shersquod become a silent observer when she came in contact with outsiders She probably realised that her husband was too transparent and from the diary entries it becomes clear that she didnrsquot want the same for herself Itrsquos why her entries seem curt Frugality which had become a way of life seems to have transferred to the use of language toordquo he says Tushar feels that the diary was Kasturbarsquos way of communicating with Gandhi He points out that it opens with ldquoaccept my humble prostrationrdquomdasha standard address in a correspondence to an older or respected person ldquoMy assumption is that since they were separated for most part due to the circumstances she chose the diary as a means to speak with him But I am sure she never gave it to Bapu because had he got the diary hersquod have returned it to her with many correctionsrdquo What he however feels the diary does is reveal the contrast between reading Bapu and Ba ldquoWhen you read Bapu you learn about the significant events of Indiarsquos freedom struggle and his own ideology which he discusses at length You donrsquot get details about the daytoday life led by Mr and Mrs Gandhi But Barsquos writing takes you there and closer to their routine When you read their writings together you have a complete portrait For the first time you have a more vivid and real glimpse of their life in the ashramrdquo