Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi. Arun Gandhi
in Bombay and sailed for England. Westward across the Arabian Sea, up through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea, then to the straits of Gibraltar, and northward on the Atlantic Ocean to the English Channel — the voyage would take seven weeks.
In Rajkot, Kasturbai Gandhi began a long and lonely vigil that would last for three years.
Her husband’s expulsion from his Modh Vania caste brought wrenching changes to Kasturbai’s life. As Mohan’s immediate family, she and Harilal were included in his excommunication ban. It was as if she had suddenly been set adrift in an ocean.
To help fill the void created by Mohan’s absence, and make the long months pass more quickly, Kasturbai had counted on taking her little son to Porbandar for regular visits with his maternal grandparents. But since the Kapadia family was also Modh Vania, she and Harilal were, in effect, disobeying caste injunctions whenever they visited her parents in Porbandar.
Her nights were long and lonely. Thanks to little Harilal, her days were full and sweet.
From today’s perspective, when I examine the Hindu culture of that time, I cannot help but note how many facets of that culture were reflected in their later endeavours in reshaping the world in which they lived. Bapu and Ba boldly challenged certain accepted beliefs and outworn customs of their Hindu heritage. But they also found creative new uses and powerful new meanings for many other ancient practices of Hinduism. That, I believe, may be the ultimate measure of their success and effectiveness as reformers. How natural was Bapu’s lifelong concern about the minutest details of day-to-day living: food, clothing, cleanliness, health care? How inevitable was his concern for diet as political testimony? How inescapable his dedication to fasting as a moral enterprise? How valid was his emphasis on the self-reliance achieved through such household activities as spinning and weaving, and how ingenious was his transformation of these everyday tasks into declarations of independence?
Above all, how crucial was Ba’s alliance with him in these matters? Her active participation in her husband’s experiments came gradually, but it grew steadily. It was always an authentic expression of her own beliefs and experiences, her own sensibilities.
In the end Ba was able to translate his teachings as no one else could; into a simple, sometimes silent, always straightforward message that reached the minds and touched the souls of untold millions of women. Through Ba, women in the remotest villages of India learned that they too could be an integral part of their nation’s struggle for self-determination.
Putliba Gandhi, however, was no ordinary widow, and her family was no ordinary family. By her very presence she still commanded love and respect. Her position in the household had remained unchanged, even after her oldest son Lakshimidas succeeded her husband as head of the joint family. Putliba participated with her sons in all family decisions. Her daughters-in-law still looked to her for guidance in housekeeping duties.
Kasturbai found particular comfort in her relationship with Putliba; there was an empathy between them. Though not a widow, as such, Kasturbai was without a husband. She also was aware of a great void in her life during the years Mohan was away. She knew that her mother-in-law missed Mohan too. Putliba often remarked on how the lively, mischievous little boy, Harilal, reminded her of Mohan at the same age. There was so much to learn about being a mother, and so much she had to teach Harilal.
As the months passed, Kasturbai became ever more conscious of substantial changes in the Gandhi family’s financial circumstances. When Karamchand was Prime Minister, he had kept the house filled with visitors. After his death, the entertaining had stopped. Kasturbai’s brothers-in-law found it difficult to earn the money needed to maintain the household in accustomed comfort. Now there were still more mouths to feed. During the years Mohandas was in London, a second daughter was born to Nandkunwar and Lakshimidas, and Ganga and Karsandas became the parents of a baby girl. Mohandas’ expenses were higher than expected. In the end, his three years in London would cost more than twice the original estimates, sending the family further into debt.
Kasturbai was acutely aware that she and Harilal were as dependent on her brothers-in-law as were their own wives and children. Before long, she found herself trying to make whatever small savings she could. She had to forget the ways of her comfortable girlhood. New clothes were out of the question. She could borrow a sari from her sisters-in-law if she wanted to give some variety to older clothes. In any case, without her wedding jewels, she could not dress as elegantly as she once had. Kasturbai also tried to cut down on her intake of food, following the example of Putliba who had always insisted on being the last in the family to take food. Sometimes when there were unexpected guests, she ate just cooked rice and milk. Kasturbai decided as long as there was plenty for Harilal to eat, she could do with less.
Her only indulgence was making sweets to send to Mohan in London. Made with wheat flour, molasses and clarified butter, golpapadi was one of the few confections that could survive the long ocean voyage to England. Mohan had a special fondness for golpapadi.
To Kasturbai, England remained a mysterious unknown territory — a land of myth and fantasy. It was difficult for her to place Mohan in that landscape and to picture in her mind what he was doing, where he was living, and whom he was seeing. Mail in India of that period was never private. In this case it could not be since Ba could not read. This hardship was, we are sure, the hardest for her to bear. It is surely the most difficult for us to fathom.
Mohan’s letters were mostly addressed to his brother Lakshimidas. The only news of Mohan that filtered down to Kasturbai was conveyed to her by her sister-in-law, titbits of information Nandkunwar gleaned from Lakshimidas.
Sometime during Mohan’s second year away from home, he sent his family a photograph of himself. When Putliba showed the portrait to Kasturbai, she was amazed and bewildered. Could that be her Indian husband, pictured in half-profile, unturbaned, wearing the dark European-style suit, the white shirt with stiff wing collar, the bow tie, slightly askew? Could that strange, grave-faced young man with the deep-set eyes, the full sensuous lips, and the sleek black hair so meticulously combed and parted, be Mohan the father of little Harilal? It was as if she had never seen him before. Then she noticed the familiar protruding right ear and was oddly comforted. Yes, it was her Mohan. But from then on, each time she looked at the photograph, she thought about a day to come when she and her husband would meet again. Would she know him then?
The shy, eager student named Mohandas Gandhi, 19 years of age, disembarked at Southampton in the autumn of 1888. He was dressed in Bombay’s best which had been chosen for the occasion. Like a true innocent abroad, he soon discovered, to his mortification, that he was possibly the only man in England on that chilly autumn day who was wearing a white flannel suit. It was the first of many shocks he would suffer in his encounters with an exotic new culture.
The knowledgeable, stylishly attired barrister named Mohandas Gandhi who sailed for home three years later nearly 22 years of age in the summer of 1891, was a man of many parts. An accomplished scholar, he had mastered Latin and French, and earned a college degree. A professional man, he had completed law studies, been called to the bar, and was enrolled in the High Court. A man of the world, he was a reasonably competent bridge player, and had received instruction in social dancing, violin playing, and public speaking. A seasoned traveller, he had visited the Great Exhibition in Paris where he had passed judgement on its greatest wonder, the Eiffel Tower. “I do not know what purpose it serves,” he wrote. “It was the toy of the Exhibition.”
Kasturbai’s husband obviously underwent some remarkable changes during his three years overseas. That the outer Mohan changed more than the inner Mohan was not so immediately apparent. But what we find most significant when we review the record of my grandfather’s years in London is that the transformations were, for the most part, wrought by his own will, through his own initiative, and with an outpouring of effort, energy, and perseverance that was truly extraordinary.
The first changes were superficial — alterations of style, appearance, and deportment made during his early months abroad. On his first day in London, Mohan was greeted by Dr. P. J. Mehta, a family