The forgotten tale of Kasturba

While the world cherishes the story of Mahatma Gandhi — right from his childhood days, to his relentless fight for independence, to the moment he crashed into the ground after being shot — there is so little that is remembered about the woman who stood through his ups and downs, devoting her entire life to what he believed in. All across our history books, while Gandhi makes for huge chapters, Kasturba Gandhi, occupies less than a handful of pages.

To change this perspective, and to bring out the unexplored and mostly forgotten tale of the woman, who remained unknown to most of the world, author Neelima Dalmia Adhar, has brought out a fictional tale titled, The Secret Diary of Kasturba (Tranquebar; 395pp). As she recently visited Chennai to discuss the book, it was an insight into Kasturba’s fascinating life — the one that could also see the sexually driven and self-righteous sides of Gandhi.

On how the idea of writing this account occurred to her, the Delhi-based writer says, “I wanted to have a book on the women characters from around the freedom movement. Then I started reading about Kasturba, trying to collect stories, and later I realised that there was not much written about her, and Kasturba was virtually absent — that is what riled me. The image of Kasturba is a blink and miss, even in Richard Attenborough’s  Gandhi. There’s so much more to Kasturba which needed to be told, and I tuned in to her voice and her soul, and the more I tuned into those silent spaces, the more I could resurrect her character.”

The book is written over the framework of history and facts, from The Story of My Experiments With Truth (Gandhi’s autobiography), The Forgotten Woman, by Arun and Sunanda Gandhi and few other books, while Neelima builds upon these, the three-dimensional characters.

“From the age of 13, from when she got married to Gandhi, till the age when she retired, there’s a lot about her that’s not known to the world, and without her, Gandhi, may not have become the Mahatma that he eventually did. Kasturba’s contribution to the making of the Mahatma is much greater than the contribution of Gandhi’s to it! So I felt the need to resurrect this woman, who walked the path, to holy redemption with him. While I was writing it, rather than making it a linear narrative, I got so involved in the character, that it became her voice eventually.”

Tales of women are very important to be brought out in the current day, Neelima says, adding, “Looking into our textbooks, there’s hardly any woman who has been written about much. As a woman, it’s almost like a service that I would like to do for the society, bringing out the untold stories of women. Especially, during an age where body shaming has become something like a bug bear; I think it is very inspiring to hear the stories of these women. For example, there have also been instances recently, where some historians have gone to the extent of saying that Rani Padmavati doesn’t exist at all. To me, it’s a pretty unfair to women.”

Sharing an anecdote, from her recent visit to New York, the writer signs off, saying, “A lady there had asked me about my book and I told her that it is about Gandhi’s wife, and the reply from her came as ‘Did he even have one?’. These are the kind of questions that I’m trying to address.”