The Secret She Kept

Though married to one of India’s most renowned and influential personalities, Kasturba Gandhi’s life has largely remained in the shadows. With her third book, The Secret Diary of Kasturba, Neelima Dalmia Adhar offers a fly-on-the-wall view into the life of the wife of Mahatma Gandhi.

- Sneha Mahale

When author Neelima Dalmia Adhar wrote her first book Father Dearest: The Life and Times of R. K. Dalmia in 2003, it scaled the bestseller list and exposed some fiercely guarded family secrets. Her second book, a novel titled Merchants of Death, exposed the underbelly of the Marwari society." In a sense, I had violated the sacred omerta by telling the world what everyone knew, but no one ever spoke about," says Dalmia Adhar.

We bring you a tete-a-tete with the author on why she wrote The Secret Diary of Kasturba, followed by excerpts from the book

What motivated you to write The Secret Dairy of Kasturba? 

I wanted to write about a strong woman character from the era around Independence. I looked at several women of that period, including Kamla Nehru, Fatima Jinnah, Sarojini Naidu and Madeleine Slade. Kasturba was conspicuous by her absence and that intrigued me. I could not understand why historians had treated her as a trivial ‘also-ran’ amongst the lofty men and women of her time, particularly when there was ample evidence to contradict that.

The book evolved after seven years of extensive research and internal churning that led me to give the elusive wife of the Mahatma, a voice and structure. The more she came alive in my mindscape, the more I began to tune into the deliberations of a forgotten woman, whose story needed to be heard. So rather than give it the shape of a lacklustre linear narrative that chronicled her life—of which there is little information and a lot of misinformation—I made that quantum leap into the unknown to create this portraiture, in the form of her diary.

What were the challenges you faced, if any, while penning down these anecdotes?