Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi. Arun Gandhi

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СКАЧАТЬ to the woman on her bed, but I was tongue-tied. She naturally lost patience with me, and showed me the door with abuses and insults. I felt as though my manhood had been injured, and wished to sink into the ground for shame.”

      Once outside on the street, however, he felt an enormous sense of relief. He had not broken his vows to be true to Kasturbai.

      Sometime later — we do not know just when — Mohandas confessed all of this to Kasturbai. He went to her half expecting to be met with anger, recriminations, and retribution. After his own recent accusations, such reactions on Kasturbai’s part would surely have been justified, which could very well have led to further indiscretions on Mohandas’ part. What he needed was understanding, solace, sympathy — and these he got in good measure. It was the first real test of their marriage and Kasturbai met this crisis with generosity and trust, and a maturity that was scarcely to be expected from a 15-year-old girl.

      Sometime in the summer of the year of 1885, Kasturbai had joyous news for her husband and her family: she was expecting their first child.

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      Kasturbai’s glad tidings were overshadowed by another matter of much graver concern. Her father-in-law Karamchand Gandhi had never fully recovered from the injuries suffered in his accident on the way to the wedding in Porbandar. Now he suffered complications. He had continued as dewan in Rajkot. An English surgeon in Bombay had recommended an operation, but this was overruled by the family physician because of Karamchand’s age and weakness. The family watched helplessly as his health got progressively worse.

      Finally, Karamchand was confined to his bed. The nursing duties fell on the family. For Mohan, nursing his father was an opportunity to demonstrate his devotion to both his parents. Also, nursing came naturally to him. My grandfather, from earliest childhood, always showed compassion for anything that was injured or suffering. His older sister Raliatben recalled how young Mohan once climbed a neighbour’s guava tree and, with strips of torn cloth, tried to bandage the broken skin on fruit pecked at by birds.

      For weeks, Mohandas spent his leisure time at his father’s side. He came home directly from school, bathed and fed Karamchand, dressed his wound, and compounded his drugs and medicines that had to be prepared at home. During his illness, Karamchand became preoccupied with religion, and Mohan would sit quietly in the evenings and listen to the many priests and holy men (Vaishnava, Jain, Muslim, Parsi) who came to his father’s bedside to discuss religion, sing hymns, and read scriptures. One night Mohan heard for the first time a Gujarati translation of the Ramayana, the story of Lord Rama who was regarded as an incarnation of the Supreme God Vishnu.

      Its central message, that “Truth is the foundation of all merit and virtue,” made such a favourable impression on Mohan that he gained a new insight into religion in general and Hinduism in particular. Finally, after all the callers had departed, Mohan would bathe his father’s feet, then knead and massage his legs until the old dewan was relaxed and ready for sleep.

      This dawn-to-midnight schedule left Mohan with little time for study and no time at all to spend with Sheik Mehtab — for which Kasturbai was duly thankful. Despite the unsatisfactory “food reform” experiment and other more devastating misadventures initiated by Mehtab, Mohan had never quite broken off their friendship. He explained that, since the association could no longer lead him astray, he now intended to “reform” his friend — a dubious prospect at best, in Kasturbai’s view. With a baby on the way, she believed more firmly than ever that Mehtab was not a proper companion for her husband. She was relieved to see the friendship languish.

      Kasturbai herself could think of little else. She was only 15 and marvelled at the month-by-month transformation wrought by pregnancy, feeling the first movement of life she carried within herself. She delighted in the pregnancy and all the attention she got from everyone. From time to time she thought about the ordeal and wondered how she would withstand it — many women died in childbirth — but she resolved not to dwell on the unknown.

      The beginning of a new life within her banished any thought of the ending of another. She found little time to worry about her father-in-law’s illness. Such was not the case for Mohan. His constant anxiety about his sick father was superceded only by his unceasing desire for his young wife. Each evening at Karamchand’s bedside, ministering to his needs, Mohan let his mind wander to the little bedroom above the main gate where Kasturbai would be waiting for him. As he imagined her undressing, brushing and combing her hair, and getting into bed, he waited with growing impatience for his father’s customary words of dismissal: “That will do for today, son. You may go to bed.”

      Members of the family who realised Karamchand’s health was failing rapidly began to call on the family. One day Karamchand’s cousin was visiting. That night he said to Mohan: “Don’t worry about your father. I will sit by his side.” Thus relieved of his nightly duties shortly after ten o’clock on November 16, 1885, Mohan rushed into his bedroom and woke up Kasturbai. She usually waited up for her husband, but this night she dropped off to sleep early, exhausted from the day’s activities.

      Mohandas undressed and slipped into bed beside her. Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door. The voice of the servant called Mohan urgently. “Come quickly! Your father is dying!” Mohan leaped out of bed, flung on his clothes and raced back to his father’s room. He was too late. Karamchand lay still and lifeless.

      A great wave of grief swept over Mohan. He would have to live with the shameful knowledge that during the moment of his father’s death he lay wrapped in the embrace of his pregnant wife.

      On November 20, four days after the death of Karamchand Gandhi, Kasturbai delivered a child prematurely. In a few days the child died.

      “The poor mite that was born to my wife scarcely breathed for more than three or four days,” so my grandfather wrote years later in his autobiography. Then passing his own moral judgment, he added, “Nothing else could be expected.”

      Mohan was convinced that the death of his and Kasturbai’s firstborn child, the baby son they had longed for, was a punishment for his reckless self-indulgence, his uncontrollable desire for his pregnant wife. He blamed only himself — never Kasturbai. In his words Kasturbai “never played the temptress.” The memory of circumstances surrounding these successive family tragedies of death, birth and death would haunt my grandfather for as long as he lived, altering his thoughts and actions in unforeseen ways.

      Life was forever changed for Kasturbai, too, in ways we can only imagine. No bells were rung, no songs were sung, no gifts arrived for the tiny infant she knew so briefly. But as far as I can discover, she never discussed the matter with anyone. I believe even after she became the mother of four sons, Ba carried in her heart a burden of silent sorrow for her lost firstborn son.

      In the late spring, Kasturbai returned to Porbandar for another of her periodic visits. Her parents were concerned about their daughter’s health after the experience of a premature birth. This was to be the longest separation since their marriage. Kasturbai needed a change.

      There had been another subtle alteration in their relationship. Mohan was now concentrating on his studies with a disconcerting new urgency she did not yet understand.

      In Porbandar, Kasturbai quickly recovered her old optimism and self-confidence. She visited the Gandhi home in Porbandar and played with the children of Mohan’s brothers and cousins. This helped her heal the wounds of her own loss.

      In Rajkot, meanwhile, decisions were being made that would affect the future course of Kasturbai’s life. The Gandhi family’s fortunes were in decline following the death of Karamchand. The dewan had set aside no money СКАЧАТЬ