New novel that chronicles the story of Kasturba

Neelima Dalmia Adhar below says that the book stemmed from the need to tell the story of Kasturba who despite being the wife of Mahatma Gandhi never got her due place in history COURTESYWESTLANDTRANQUEBAR VIA GETTY IMAGESThe year is 1908 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who is serving a twomonth jail term in Johannesburg after refusing to pay a token fine for protesting the newly introduced Immigrant Act receives a letter from his close associate Albert West notifying him about the deteriorating condition of his wife Kasturba West urges him to pay the stipulated fine and rush back to his wife in PhoenixWhat follows is a concerned but helpless husbandrsquos letter My dearest Kastur I am not in a position to come and nurse you If I come to you now I will have to plead guilty to breaking the law You know this is not possible Even if you die you will be eternally alive because your soul is deathless On my part I would like to assure you that I do not intend to marry another woman after your deathrdquoOne canrsquot tell how Kasturba the wife of the future Mahatma may have taken to this illtimed letter At least there is no documented evidence to say so But author Neelima Dalmia Adharrsquos new book The Secret Diary of Kasturba lends her a voice ldquoThe cold matteroffact letter from my husband hit me like an avalanche of ice To come to terms with the truth that it made little difference to Mohandasrsquos life whether I was dead or alive was painfulrdquo she saysAdharrsquos soon to be released novel published by WestlandTranquebar hopes to tell the forgotten story of a woman who lived in the shadow of her iconic and powerful husband ldquoShe shouldered Gandhirsquos cause and was the backbone of the revolution with him Yet when I started reading up on Gandhi I realised that there was nothing written on her except for one sketchy biography by her grandson Arun and his wiferdquo says Adhar in a telephone chat from her home in DelhiWhile this book has evolved over a period of eight years Adhar spent two years researching her subject ldquoThe mainstay of my writing came from Arun and Sunandarsquos book titled The Forgotten Woman and Gandhirsquos autobiography My Experiments With Truth But I didnrsquot want my book to just be a chronicle of Kasturbarsquos birth marriage and death I wanted to give it a different spinrdquo says Adhar whose previous works include Father Dearest mdash a biography of her industrialist dad RK Dalmia mdash and Merchants of DeathThe result is a series of ldquoimaginedrdquo diary entries which chronicles the 62 years of Kasturbarsquos life as a pampered daughter obedient wife sacrificial mother and devoted satyagrahi ldquoTo make that leap into her space wasnrsquot a conscious effortrdquo says Adhar of her novel ldquoFor some reason Kasturbarsquos life resonated with my own family In her I saw my mother Padma Bhushan awardee Dinesh Nandini Dalmia also the wife of a very successful industrialist RK Dalmia who had a turbulent relationship with his wives and children It was almost as if I was reliving that storyrdquo says AdharThe only difference was that it was Adhar and not Kasturba relaying the latterrsquos story And the writer is well aware of that ldquoIt is just me as a woman of the 21st century juxtaposing myself onto her mind and imagining how she would think speak or react in a certain situationrdquo says Adhar of her work which she describes as ldquobiofictionrdquo ldquoIt is neither fiction nor fact It is an amalgamation of bothrdquo she saysldquoI have been extremely anal about sticking to facts and details And I havenrsquot wavered one millimetre when it came to getting my history right simply because I did not want to tread in territory where I could be challenged for stating something not documented or that may not be true The only time I drifted is when I presented Kasturbarsquos character in my mould and tried to analyse her mind environment and the social milieu she was brought up inrdquoBut Adhar admits in writing this book she was walking on eggshells ldquoIt is dangerous because by touching upon a subject that is otherwise considered taboo I am challenging all kinds of forces around me We live in an age where an uninformed group could pick up a single word quote it out of context and create a huge antireaction But to be honest I had absolutely no fear when writing this bookrdquo she saysldquoWith this portraiture of a woman who everyone wants to know about I have done society a good deed Her story needed to be toldrdquo she addsAdhar would like to describe Kasturbarsquos relationship with the Mahatma as one that was volatile and subservient at the same time ldquoThey were two very powerful individuals brought together by providence Gandhirsquos contribution to Indiarsquos freedom struggle is unchallengeable she says ldquoBut without passing judgement I would say that it was Kasturbarsquos karmic debt to be the Mahatmarsquos wiferdquo she says ldquoShe is the quintessential Indian woman the emerging feminine Shakti who is relevant from the time of the Mahabharata till today She can alter adapt and take on all kinds of hardship and yet emerge stronger than the man she is married tordquo