Shadow and strength

Stories of Kasturba’s leading role in the freedom movement are yet to be fully told

- MANDIRA NAYAR

The sky is crayoned blue. The ground is squelchy like chocolate left out in summer. Rain has pelted nonstop for a week. And the sun filters through the freshly laundered leaves. At the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Rural Industrialization campus in Wardha, the smell of turpentine—sprayed to ward of termites eating away Gandhian institutions—is eye-watering.

Across a bridge painted in tricolours, is the thatched house where Gandhi lived.

In Wardha where everything is Gandhi-touched, there is a little-known space of the other Gandhi—Kasturba. Ba ki Rasoi (Ba’s kitchen) is now turned into a shrine with an LED display of her husband. This is where his followers, those engaged in sangarsh for satya—the battle for truth—found sustenance.

It was no small task, catering for a revolution. Kasturba would be up at 4am. “She took part in all Ashram activities, besides—such as cleaning grain, cutting vegetables, making chapatis, etc.,’’ wrote Sushila Nayar, her doctor in an article on Ba and Bapu.

It is a large room. Faded photographs on the mud-plastered walls offer a glimpse of the sheer size of the operation it would have been. It was like feeding an army. She was as much a hard taskmaster as Gandhi, her organisational skills military efficient. “She demanded punctuality, scrupulous cleanliness, good manners and participation... from everyone eating in her kitchen,’’ wrote G. Ramchandran, who spent 1925 at Sevagram working with Ba in the kitchen.