Being Kasturba's voice

It takes courage to become the voice of the submissive, in revealing the dark side of the man, who has been tagged as the 'mahatma.' Neelima Dalmia Adhar, who earlier wrote best-selling novel 'father dearest', took a bold step to unravel the character of Mohandas as a sexually driven, self-righteous and overbearing husband, through her book 'The Secret Diary of Kasturba'.

The spellbinding chronicle of Kasturba's life speaks of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was sworn to poverty, celibacy and cause for India's freedom. Completely eclipsed by the man who almost became the God for India's multitude, the efforts of Kasturba as a wife and a mother went ignorant. She spent sixty-two years of her life juggling the roles of a devoted wife, a satyagrahi and sacrificing mother.

Originally written in English, 'The secret diary of Kasturba' was recently translated into Hindi and launched during an event at the Oxford Book store. Vinod dua, a senior journalist, held a discussion with the author about her book, the idea behind writing it and her connection with the main character.

Talking about her wish to write about a strong woman character set in the pre/post independence era, Neelima said, "Kasturba's story was very close to my heart. We share a lot of commonality in the sense that we belong to quite similar family backgrounds. Moreover, though I was not directly involved in the freedom struggle, the remnants of the time still resonated in my life. My father was a close associate of Gandhi and my mother led the life of Kasturba. So the cry of Kasturba as a wife of Gandhi was quite similar to the cry of Dinesh Nandani (my mother)."

"My father was a megalomaniac with six wives and 18 children. When I started reading out about Kasturba, I found some startling revelations of her life. The more I tuned into her voice, the more I heard her cry. I was compelled to create this character which the history has forgotten. Kasturba came easily to me. Moreover the time was right because we are ready to receive the deconstruction of MAHATMA," added Neelima.

She considers finding the documented material on Kasturba as the biggest challenge. Also, she could not just accuse the 'father of nation' without considerable proof as it would for sure hurt the sentiments of his followers. Stating the process of creating the virtual character of Kasturba, Neelima said, "I was handicapped. I had a big challenge finding documented material on her. I tried to gather facts from a various book written on Gandhi and thereby tried to deduce the facts to know what kind of a person she was. Based on the facts I created a sculpture and gave it my voice. Towards the end, I was able to find a woman who was fearless, strong and passionate. She did not like what was happening to her but she let her get into the mould of her life."

The book reveals the trauma she went through when the decision of celibacy was forced on her without consent. The mention of the startling incidences about Gandhi's arbitrariness, the painful phase of living alone without her husband (when he was in South Africa), the feelings of jealousy, insecurity and possessiveness rising out of his closeness with other women like Mira Bai and Sarla Devi – niece of Rabindranath Tagore, everything is indicative of the never ending misery of Kasturba's life.