Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi. Arun Gandhi
Indians in South Africa, and his name was being read for the first time (and remembered) by the Indian public.
In September a reporter for Reuters, the British news agency, cabled a brief account of the Green Pamphlet and the stir it had caused, to the London office.
London then cabled a still briefer version to the Durban office, a three-line summary in which Mohandas was quoted (misquoted, actually) as saying Indians in Natal were “robbed, assaulted, and treated like beasts,” with no hope of redress. This distorted report, printed in the Natal Mercury caused an uproar in Durban, and would soon lead to repercussions for him and his family.
Kasturbai was uneasy, too, though trying not to show it. She, who had never travelled more than 100 miles beyond the borders of Porbandar and Rajkot, was now facing the immediate reality of crossing the sea in a ship and living thousands of miles away from home and relatives. Who could tell when or if she would ever see her parents and her brothers again?
She kept reminding herself that when the voyage was over she would have her own home with her own family living all together. She was pleased, too, that their nephew was going with them. At ten, Gokaldas was only a few months younger than her firstborn son would be, had he lived. She felt a pang, thinking of poor Raliatben whose husband had recently died.
Grandmother realised she would have to find a dress that would amalgamate western and eastern cultures. She opted for the dress worn by Parsi women: longer saris, long-sleeved blouses, socks and shoes.
Whites in South Africa regarded Parsis as the most civilised of Asians, so Mohandas had decided this costume would give his family the respectability he sought for them.
“What a heavy price one has to pay to be regarded as civilised.”
Such was my grandmother’s comment, years later, while reminiscing to friends about this period in her life. On board ship, Mohandas insisted that she and the children wear their new shoes and socks from the time they got up till the time they went to bed. This was something they never did in Rajkot, and they hated it. Their feet hurt and their socks got sweaty and smelly. To get his family used to wearing shoes, Mohandas had them spend hours each day walking on the ship’s deck. He walked with them, studying Kasturbai’s posture.
“Be straight, hold your head high,” he kept telling her. For several days she felt as if she would fall at every step.
But she plodded on for Mohandas’ sake, waiting for the night, when she could throw off her shoes and soothe her aching feet. Secretly she yearned for the freedom and peace of Rajkot.
There was none of this nonsense there. She could dress in normal fashion, and walk and sit on the floor as she pleased.
Mealtime was worse than walking — a nightmare for them all. In Rajkot, everyone sat on the floor, each with his own brass plate, when they had meals. But now Kasturbai and the boys had to sit at the table with their legs dangling. The china plates were small, and they were prohibited from using their fingers.
Mohandas watched over all of them like a hawk, endlessly chiding them for not holding the spoon or fork correctly and not using the knife as it should be used. “You must keep your mouth shut when you chew,” he would say.
For Kasturbai, struggling to get food to her mouth with strange implements, this last instruction was too much. Impossible! How could you eat with your mouth shut without making forbidden slurping noises. And the food was impossible, too. Unlike anything she made at home; it was tasteless.
Boiled vegetables and bread! This they had never even seen, let alone tasted. What Kasturbai wanted, above all else, was to cook a proper meal again, one they could eat in the way they enjoyed. She began counting the days until the end of the voyage.
But there came a time when she feared the voyage would never end. They were barely five days from Durban when a violent storm seized them at sea, one of the great summer monsoons common in December in the Southern hemisphere. Both ships were tossed about by gigantic waves. No one could stay on the gale-swept decks. Terrified passengers, most of who were on their first sea voyage, were sent below. Prayers of many religions were said. Almost everyone, including Kasturbai and the boys, soon became extremely ill as the ship’s pitching and rolling turned stomachs inside out. Apart from the ship’s crew, the only person on the Courland who remained unaffected by the turbulent weather was Mohandas. He got his family settled in their cabin, consoled them as best he could, then toured the ship, at the captain’s request, reassuring the other passengers.
Left alone with the whimpering children, Kasturbai tried to comfort them, but her own misery was too great. For what seemed like the longest 24 hours of her life, she lay in the cabin, waiting for the end to come. Each time the ship rolled on its side, she thought it was about to sink. She was convinced they would all drown in this dreadful sea; her only consolation was they would all die together. She vowed she would never set foot on a ship again, if by any chance, she came off this one alive.
At last, the skies cleared and the sun appeared. With fear of death gone and appetites returned, the passengers celebrated their survival. The Gandhis resumed their daily walks on deck. A few days later, on December 19, 1896, there was great excitement aboard both ships when the Courland and Nadir arrived at the port of Durban.
But the festive mood vanished when health authorities boarded the ships before they entered the harbour and declared that no one would be allowed to disembark. The vessels were to be held in quarantine for at least the next five days, because of the outbreak of plague earlier that year in Bombay.
The enforced confinement while the Courland lay at anchor just outside the harbour was nerve-wracking. Mohandas tried to divert the passengers. Games were organised to pass the time, and the Gandhi boys joined in. On Christmas day the Gandhi family was invited to join other cabin passengers and the ship’s officers. Speaking in English, Mohandas celebrated the fact that Christianity, like other great religions of the world, taught peace and nonviolence, but deplored the paradox that Western civilisation often seemed to be based on force. I’ve often wondered what it was like for a pious Hindu wife like Kasturbai to find herself publicly observing the most sacred day of an unfamiliar religion by listening to her husband make a speech to strangers in an unintelligible foreign tongue. Surely this was as bewildering and unsettling as anything that had happened thus far on her first sea voyage.
But there was more to come.
The day after Christmas the quarantine was extended. No explanations were given. But it was becoming clear that the true cause for the docking delay was not plague in Bombay, but an epidemic in Durban — an epidemic of indignation among the whites of Natal. From the offices of Dada Abdullah & Company, Mohandas got reports of what was happening in the city. News had spread that the author of the infamous Green Pamphlet published in India was coming to Durban bent on making trouble.
Garbled press reports had created the impression that Mohandas had condemned all Europeans for ill-treating the Indians. Now the rumour was that Mohandas had arrived in Natal, bringing with him two shiploads of unindentured Indians (more than 800 new immigrants, according to the latest exaggerations). It was said that he intended to swamp the country with these free Indians, these hordes of brown Asiatics fighting for equal rights. Government officials were disturbed. Even some of Mohandas’ white friends, among them his neighbour Harry Escombe, who was Natal’s Attorney General, had come to doubt his good intentions, or, at the very least, to see him as a threat to law, order, and tranquillity in South Africa. Public protest meetings were being held nightly, angry whites were castigating Mohandas and demanding his expulsion.
There was even talk of expelling all Indians from Natal. Most immediately, there were demands that the Courland and Nadir be turned back. There were hints that the government was prepared to pay Dada Abdullah & Company the full cost of returning the passengers to India. Some whites were reportedly offering the ticket refunds directly.
As these reports spread among passengers on the Courland, there was great consternation. Some were ready to go home to India. Others, with homes in South Africa, worried about being separated from their families. Mohandas sought to reassure them all, and sent messages of