AdvertisingManu (Mridula Gandhi), granddaughter of the Mahatma’s cousin, entered the Gandhi story at a particularly tragic phase of his life. Like him, Manu wrote the diary not as a report of her day, but of Gandhi’s. Her diaries will be primarily remembered for the complementing viewpoint she brings to Gandhi’s brahmacharya experiment, which will appear in the second volume. Whether this was spiritual arrogance or guilt-prone humility is open to interpretation, but witnessing inhuman violence, Gandhi needed to check within for remnants of lust and remove them. Manu alone saw Gandhi as mother, and exclaimed at the joy of being “that beloved child of Mother Bapu!”Thus, it was Manu who would bear witness, not just to the culmination of Gandhi’s striving, but his final sacrifice.

Source: Indian Express September 28, 2019 19:07 UTC