same as before.
All of us children would go off into the jungle to play. Mother would stop us. We never went too far into the forest, but it would scare Mother nevertheless. It was difficult for her to understand the attraction nature has for children – how we longed to play in the lap of nature with full abandon. Once, when we came home after playing, I found Mother waiting for us – nervous, worried and worked up. ‘Listen, don’t go into the jungle to play, and if you hear a man laughing, don’t go investigating.’
‘Whose laughter? Which man?’ I asked.
‘It’s not a man.’ Mother explained. ‘It’s a hyena who laughs like a man. Children get taken in by the sound and go near it. The hyena lures little children and catches them.’
I can never forget how frightening those words were.
We used to come home covered in mud, and had to be cleaned up innumerable times a day. Just changing our clothes and keeping us clean would tire out mother so much. And when Dada and Dadi came to visit us, looking after them and attending to guests who came to meet them, while looking after us, must have been exhausting for Mother. Today I can only imagine how tiring it must have been for her. But the presence of my grandparents brought so much cheer that every day seemed like a festival. Bapu-ji would stay in our house at Harijan Ashram. Sometimes Ba would come and stay there alone, without Bapu-ji. We children would jump for joy on hearing the news of her arrival. There was a heavenly purity in the smell of sandalwood and sunshine that was an integral part of her body and her khadi sari with a coloured border.
Decades later, that day, as I stood before the house, all those memories from the past came flooding back to me. Mother’s voice, Dadi’s perfumed presence, the company of our cousins, Father’s busy life, his head shaking with worry (which did not leave my child’s mind untouched). Gandhi’s independence movement was at its peak. Independence was the unknown factor. Satyagrah was the known factor. Dada, Dadi, Nana, Tau, Kaka, Mama and all their companions were constantly in jail. Father would be jailed on and off for publishing news of the Satyagrah. Amidst all this, Mother and Father remained focused on our upbringing.
In our small house, we did not have a fresh-water tap and we probably didn’t have electricity either. But there was definitely a traditional luxury. Today when I think about it, it seems to be totally feudal in nature in the context of Gandhian philosophy. In one of the rooms, there hung from the roof a khadi curtain, which was one-fifth the height of the walls. On one corner of the curtain was a rope that hung to the ground. On moving the rope up and down, the curtain worked as a fan. As far as I can remember, this comfort had turned into a plaything for us children. I vaguely recollect a young boy, who was employed to help in the house, swaying the curtain-fan. I also vaguely remember that Father thought of it as a necessary evil. Perhaps he had installed the fan for Ba’s comfort; in his desire to serve Ba, he could pull that rope all night. The fan must have been there for Mother’s comfort as well, because mother suffered from illnesses like pneumonia and pleurisy in those years. Today such fans seem to have become a symbol of our cultural heritage, out on display at exhibitions.
Made and run by hand, this useful apparatus was a symbol of our exploitative society – a society for whose upliftment Mahatma Gandhi worked so hard. Anyway, it is true that even sixty-four years after Independence today, we haven’t taken any concrete steps for the rehabilitation of the downtrodden. The cord of the fan has in its various forms tied us down.
I remember Mother working hard all the time. She would take care of all the kitchen chores. If I can’t quite visualize my mother squatting on a low stool in front of a wood stove, it is not because my memory has faded; it must surely be the smoke from the stove that makes the picture hazy.
I once told mother, ‘You would do a lot of work in the Harijan Ashram.’
Mother said, ‘I was young then. I could easily manage the sweeping, mopping, washing the clothes, doing the dishes.’ Her burden would increase because of visitors. ‘I used to get upset only because having guests meant less time for kids,’ she added.
‘But yes,’ Mother reminisced, ‘when I used to fall ill, Bapu-ji would send Ba to look after you children. Ba would never stay away very long from Bapu-ji, but she wouldn’t leave you kids until I recovered completely. Neither did you leave her alone for a minute.’ Recently I found a letter written by Bapu-ji to Mother. In that short note, written in 1935, Bapu-ji tells Mother that if Tara is very ill, Ba is willing to go and look after her.
That day in front of that house, Mother’s words echoed in my thoughts. I always saw Mother being a good hostess in the best Indian tradition. Despite all the responsibilities, she always had time for us.
In the ashram there was a round temple in front of the house. That day my eyes automatically sought out the temple. Its creation is part of my first conscious memory. A painter from Gujarat came to adorn the walls of this temple when it was built. He told my brother Mohan and me very affectionately that he needed our help with the painting. ‘I will draw and paint on the walls from atop a stool or steps. You please hold my colour palette. I can then bend and take the colours I need.’ We were thrilled at the idea. Father was happy too. Mohan and I would stand there helping the painter. We used to call him Bhatt-ji. The entire ashram was excited about the construction of the temple. Bapu-ji was to come for its inauguration. Assisting Bhatt-ji was an extraordinary experience for us. Children feel rewarded when entrusted a responsibility with affection and trust, and that experience becomes a warm memory as they grow up. Children are very intuitive. People’s natural considerations touch them in a way that they never forget.
The temple was complete. I don’t remember the day of the inauguration. Recently I came across an old photograph in which Bapu-ji has a small girl in his lap wrapped up in a sheet and there is another younger child sitting next to him. I think the picture is from the inauguration of the temple.
Leaving behind the rural ambience of the ashram, I naturally took with myself, in my memory, some people and families. Annaro, a village girl who used to help mother in and around the house; Mangal Bhai, the carpenter in the ashram; and a teacher’s family of Indian Tamil origin from Malaysia – none of us can ever forget these people. Annaro had a rustic charm, Mangal Bhai was friendly, and the Malaysian family was rather modern for the times. These loving people were my first introduction to society outside of family, and I believe one’s first experience of the world outside home shapes one’s personality. In my seventh decade today, I understand that these people, my first friends in the world outside home, were extraordinary in their ordinariness.
Even after leaving the ashram, we used to nag our parents to take us back every week to meet these old friends. As soon as we reached the ashram, Mangal Bhai would come running to meet us. He would say, ‘Tara, Mohan, you still come to visit us, but gradually you will stop coming. Don’t forget us.’ Mangal Bhai’s words, along with our own displacement, had a strong effect on our minds. Till many years later, I continued comparing every place to life in the ashram.
So, yes, coming back to the point, I was rooted to the spot in front of our old house in the Harijan Colony, caught in a moment from memory, overcome with old sounds and smells. Standing there I saw Kasturba. I could clearly hear her words: ‘Wash your hands and eat. Oh my God, your clothes are so…’ The dream broke. I was looking at my clothes. They were probably not as clean as Ba would have liked them to be. And yes, I was hungry. And then another reality broke my bubble. From behind me came a voice changing the rhythm of my internal music: ‘Let’s go, Tara. The meeting is about to start.’ There was a meeting in the ashram in memory of the Late Hari-ji.
These days I constantly feel a strange curiosity, a strange excitement. I am searching for the unknown supreme power in the absolute beauty of the known powers of a mother.
Ba would come and stay with us in the Connaught Place flat, but Bapu-ji never managed. For Bapu-ji to stay anywhere, it was essential to organize