Sarla Behn The Last To See Gandhi Alive
On the surface, this nonagenarian could simply seem like a treasure trove of stories. But as you get to know her, you’d realise she’s a Gandhian — an OG follower who was taught by Mahatma Gandhi and raised like a daughter by his wife, Kasturba. Sarla Mehta and her mother lived at Sabarmati Ashram, from where the leader ran the initial phase of India’s freedom movement. She was merely 6 years old when she began to interact with the Mahatma, who was essentially a father figure to everyone who resided in the ashram. Gradually, as she grew up, she realised the value assigned by the world to the man who had been teaching her and taking care of her.
Years later, Sarla Behn, as she’s fondly called, still remembers an afternoon when Mahatma Gandhi had a visitor – Jawaharlal Nehru. As instructed, Sarla was refusing to let him into Bapu’s room, as he was busy and didn’t want to be disturbed.
She remembers the episode fondly, and recalls it for her grandchildren each time they want to be taken back in that time. Sarla Behn believes that it was Kasturba Gandhi’s nurturing that drove her towards education and that laid the foundation of a life that would be founded on principles and literacy.
As Sarla Behn enters the Sabarmati Ashram, decades after she last saw it or set foot in it, she’s taken back into an era when Mahatma Gandhi wrote to her, asked her well-being and and ensured he kept her close as a disciple in his last days. It’s special to go back to one’s udgam or roots. But it’s probably one of the world’s most delightful and proud experiences to go back to a place like Sabarmati Ashram that raised freedom fighters and individuals who can perpetuate the ideologies of truth and ahimsa that Mahatma Gandhi stood for.