The one person in the Ashram who never deferred to Bapu — his own wife.
Gandhi’s iron will was well known. He was gentle but inflexible. The nearer one was to Gandhi, the more ruthless the discipline imposed on one — that is why, perhaps, Gandhi was most ruthless with himself. He was never intolerant, and not only did he not resent opposition, he actually encouraged it. And yet people shrank from opposing him, because they trusted him more than they trusted themselves.
But in the Satyagraha Ashram, there was one exception to this rule: the person nearest to him, his own wife. In the Ashram she was always called Ba, meaning “mother” — a little imperious old lady with flashing eyes, a sharp voice, and firm-set lips. When she chose, she could be very sweet; she could also be hard and unbending. She ruled her part of the Gandhi cottage, including the kitchen, with an iron hand.
Dear soul that she was, she had a heavy job on her hands. Besides her own great husband and children, she had to cook for some twenty other inmates of the Ashram — her share of the roughly two hundred inmates divided among the different kitchens. In her own kitchen she was no mere supervisor; she was the chief cook. There were others to help her, but the main burden fell on her shoulders. In those days she was vigorous and active, a dynamic force to be reckoned with. Her energy was prodigious — so, sometimes, was her temper.
It was not easy to serve as an assistant in her kitchen. She was a most exacting mistress, regular to the minute and tireless in her own work, and she made her assistants follow her example. If they were the least bit lazy or careless, out they went. Once, a young lad from Travancore was posted as her assistant. He found it tough going at first, but made good progress and gave Ba great satisfaction — so much so that Gandhi, who always kept an unobtrusive eye on the kitchen department, complimented the young man more than once. Gandhi knew the “politics” of his kitchen quite as well as he did the politics of India.
There was one matter on which Ba would sometimes clash with Bapu — and on this, justice was usually on Ba’s side. Unexpected guests were a constant feature of Ashram life, distributed among the various kitchens, and Ba always seemed to get more than her fair share. When several such guests were suddenly put on to her without notice, she would let her temper fly, strictly in private — and Gandhi, on these occasions, would grow humble and tactful. He was, in truth, a little afraid of Ba.
One day this happened again, just after Ba and her young assistant had washed up after lunch and closed the kitchen. Ba was very tired — who would not be? — and perhaps a little indisposed, so she went to lie down in her room. Gandhi seized the moment, approaching the kitchen and speaking to the young assistant in a whisper, careful not to disturb Ba in the next room.
A number of very distinguished guests, he explained — among them the late Pandit Motilal Nehru — were to arrive within the hour, and lunch needed preparing. He put a finger to his lips, glancing toward Ba’s room. “Do not disturb her. Summon Kusum, light the fire, chop the vegetables, and knead the flour for the chapatis. Send for Ba only when she is needed. And mind you do not irritate her — you will deserve a prize if Ba does not go for me!” He had the look, they said, of some innocent conspirator, a little nervous lest Ba should wake suddenly and burst upon him.
The young assistant and Kusum opened the kitchen as quietly as they could. The fires were lit, the vegetables chopped, the flour kneaded — and then, as ill luck would have it, a brass plate crashed to the floor. The noise woke Ba, who rushed in certain the Ashram cat was up to some mischief. The sight that greeted her astonished her, and she demanded to know what it was all about, a sharp edge to her voice.
"Why did you not send for me? You think I cannot manage this extra work?"
"You also tired much — why you think you work more and I can do no extra work?"
It was smooth sailing after that. But Ba was shrewder than one might have thought, and she knew Gandhi had arranged the whole thing. That night, after prayers, once all the guests had left, she faced Gandhi unexpectedly — arms akimbo, a mischievous light in her eyes.
“Why did you ask them to do the work without me? You think I am such a bag of lazy bones?”
Gandhi replied with an answering twinkle in his eye.
The heart of the story
"Don't you know, Ba — I am afraid of you on such occasions?" She let out a peal of incredulous laughter, as if to say, "What! You, afraid of me!" And yet it was the truth. Gandhi was afraid of almost no one — but if he was afraid of anyone, perhaps it was, in the smallest way, the little indomitable woman who was his wife.
