Gandhi- sublime memories of a Father

“I have held my flesh as a dutiful human, but the world as a Father”
-Mahatma Gandhi

Perhaps the most intriguing persona of the era of India’s much awaited independence was Mohandas, the one-man army, the one- cloud sky and the one- line story. He is long gone, perhaps years before you and I could even have heard of him or known him or seen him. His dainty yet forthright figure that had delved deeply into the bloody river of India’s freedom can no longer be seen swimming again, nor can his charisma or his charm conjure the resurrection of the Indian soil and fortify the nation for forthcoming generations.
We celebrated with much zest as India touched her sixtieth year of Independence- Something, in which Mohandas played the key protagonist. And what to say of his power, he adorned the cape of the Nation’s father with such responsiveness that he died wearing it. (And even on his deathbed, his cotton cape was spotless; inspite of the fact that it had witnessed lurid viciousness and had even fought dearly for freedom). Free India, kissed the sixtieth cloud in her sky on the 15th of august and just a few days down the line Mohandas has received the sixty medals of his sacrifice- one that was only his and contained the contribution of no one else- on October the 2nd.
Bapu, as he was dearly christened by the nation was a man of few words. His actions said more than words and words said what even the actions of the nation couldn’t. To you, our parents, our grandparents and me he was no more than the father of our nation, but to his own flesh he was something too- A father who was never theirs. A father who had to be shared with the billion Indians that took shelter under his wing and respected him equally. Thus not much is known about Mohandas’ family life. Perhaps it was so fragmented that it could never really be pieced together.
Kasturba and Mohandas were both 13 when their marriage was arranged, mere children who deserved much more than what they got. Then Gandhi was young and he taught his child- wife the alphabet as a child- teacher. “Little did I know I had enrolled myself into a bond of child marriage” reminiscences Gandhi much later.
The Gandhi blood- line began with their first son Harilal in 1888. Perhaps he is the key that differentiates between Bapu’s personal and public life (one he himself never claimed to have). Harilal’s indignance towards Mohandas’ being Bapu for the whole country, and his feeling victimised after Bapu refuses his bail, totally shatters him. This causes me to think, did Bapu, who fathered the whole Nation fail as a father to his own blood? Or was the cost of our Nations independence the fragmentation of one relationship- one family?