The irony escaped neither father nor daughter. Eminent silk merchant and Sheriff of Bombay, Sir Shantidas Askuran stared at his dynamo of a daughter, Malati. She stood before him, fresh out of custody, for her involvement in the agitation whose cries of “Quit India” ripped the already-charged air early that morning of August 9, 70 monsoons ago. Fully aware that she had risked her father’s wrath for being jailed by the British three months after they honoured him with a knighthood in May 1942, the young collegian could barely believe she heard him say: “Do what you have to, beta. I am your pita but you can follow your Rashtrapita — Gandhiji.”

Such encouragement and, later, support from her husband, Damu Jhaveri, freedom fighter and founder of the Indian National Theatre (INT), spurred Malatiben Jhaveri on. Today, at the age of 90, she battles painful arthritis without losing an ounce of spark. And sparkling, literally, this Gandhian, is. Big bindis on a slightly crinkled forehead add to the luminosity she exudes, glinting in the light at every tilt of her head as she speaks in rapid fire sentences. It is pure privilege to listen to her story in her ancestral Hughes Road home, fittingly called Shanti Sadan.