The new generation is not so much aware of Delhi’s link with Mahatma Gandhi, with few realizing that (like Germany) there’s a three-month Oktober-fest, ending in December to commemorate with not beer mugs but with a generous rebate on khadi, so dear to the Father of the Nation. Rajghat of course is there and so is Gandhi Smriti as perpetual memorials to the man about whom Einstein declared that “generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth”. Nearer home one is inclined to recall what some forgotten contemporaries said of him. Hakim Ajmal Khan, six years older, thought that for a person who survived mainly on goat’s milk he was in surprisingly good health but needed to enrich his diet. He even prescribed some Unani tonics when they met at Sharif Manzil but Gandhiji would have none of them. Dr. M. A. Ansari was greatly impressed by the Mahatma’s lifestyle but advised him at his Daryaganj kothi to cover up the upper body against the morning and night chill. Pandit Ram Chander, nine years senior, confessed that he had never met a man like him. He was surprised at Gandhiji’s stamina and rejected those who called his “buzurug” as “buz” meant sheep in Farsi and implied that such a one had weak blood in his veins. Bapu told him that when he was a boy his mother insisted that he never go to school without breakfast, even if it was kaleva (left-over dinner). That helped to build up his resistance .“And swimming to school made me really strong,” added Panditji.
The colony where Gandhiji had a room is still there but known as Valmiki Colony. Its caretaker, a big-built man, Guruji, had seen the Mahatma and recalled that he was ever punctual for his evening bhajan sandhya. He descended from his room above the stairs just at 6 p.m. in summer and earlier in winter, checking the time with a pocket-watch he kept tied to his waist. After the prayer meeting, he would usually go out though a small door to St.Thomas’s Church, adjacent to the colony and talk to the pastor, Rev. Weler, an Englishman. The church was built specially for the working class and opened by Lady Willingdon in January 1932. It had Urdu inscriptions since most of the churchgoers could not read English. Firoz Bakht Ahmed, grand nephew of Maulana Azad, says that it was Gandhiji who had started the first Swachh-Bharat Abhiyan, now made popular by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his talks with Maulana Azad, who jotted down whatever he said in Urdu. Gandhiji disclosed that his Abhiyan had started in South Africa. Even the term “Safai Karamchari” is Gandhian in origin. During his first visit to the sweepers’ slum that he converted into Valmiki colony, the Mahatma noticed that the place was very dirty. He took a bucket and a broom and cleaned the latrines himself. When Kasturba objected to joining him, he is believed to have told her, “I can leave you but not scavenging”. Lala Hanwant Sahai of Chandni Chowk, one of the accused in the Hardinge Bomb Case of 1912, met Gandhiji reluctantly because he thought non-violence was not enough to oust the British from India. When the Mahatma heard that he was among the revolutionaries, he complimented him but asserted that non-violence was the greatest weapon. Hanwant Sahai recalled this conversation when one met him in the late 1960s. He was an octogenarian then and realised that what Gandhiji had told him was true when he saw him breaking his fast at Sisganj Gurdwara. The late Haji Zahooruddin disclosed that he was so inspired by Gandhiji that during a football match (when he was goalie of the Young Men’s team) he did not retaliate after a frustrated rival player hit, though he was much stronger than him.
An old resident of Mandir Marg, who wanted to be known only as Sharmaji, said that he used to see Nathuram Godse practising shooting with a revolver in the jungle behind the road. A friend of Sharmaji’s who worked at Marina Hotel in Connaught Place later told him that Godse used to spend the time in his room target-practising with a revolver. When Gandhiji was shot dead at his evening prayer meeting in Delhi, Sharmaji and his friend realized what Godse had been up to. The Beretta revolver incidentally belonged to Sir Anthony Filose, the Italian Sardar of Maharaja Scindia’s durbar, who had given it for repairs to a gunshop in Gwalior and from where it was stolen. If you visit Marina Hotel you can still probably see the room occupied by Godse. And not far from it is the Khadi Bhavan which is the venue of frenetic sales those days for even those who want to make a fashion statement (FabIndia included) with or without frothing beer.
