The Secret Diary of Kasturba

About the Book

THE STORY OF KASTURBA GANDHI AND WHAT IT MEANT TO BE THE WIFE OF MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI.

'I don't know what evil resides in me, ' he wrote to a friend. 'I have a streak of cruelty in me that compels people to attempt the impossible in order to please.'

He is the Mahatma, a man the world venerates as a prophet of peace. But for Kastur, the child bride who married the boy next door, Mohandas was a sexually driven, self-righteous and overbearing husband.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was sworn to poverty, celibacy and the cause of India's freedom. Kastur spent sixty-two years of her life juggling the roles of a devoted wife, a satyagrahi and a sacrificing mother, who was eclipsed because of a man who almost became God for India's multitude. Gandhi was an intolerant father to Harilal, his wayward son. Kasturba paid the price for her son's unending misery.

Kastur is long dead, but she lives on in the pages of her diary. In this gripping tale, Neelima Dalmia Adhar tells her story and what it meant to be Kasturba Gandhi, wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

About the Author

Neelima Dalmia Adhar was educated in a convent school and a reputed college in Delhi and has a master's in psychology with a specialisation in 'Personality.' Her first and only job was to teach Psychology to undergraduate students at Delhi University. A passionate 'people-watcher', she is drawn to oddities and thrives on writing about personalities and human behaviour, from the quirky to the mysterious to the bizarre, a subject she does chillingly close to the bone.

She lives in Delhi with her husband, children and two grandchildren.