THE PASSING AWAY OF BAPU

                   The Passing Away Of Bapu

                                        ---Nayantara Sehgal

I was having tea at home on the evening of 30^th January, 1948, when I was called to Birla house by an urgent telephone. Gandhiji had been shot on his way to a prayer meeting. I was numb with shock as I got into the car.

At the Birla house, Gandhiji’s relatives and followers had gathered round his body. There was silence in the room as Gandhiji breathed his last. Words of bapuji’s death had spread through Delhi like a flame fanned by wind. Sad groups of men and women had collected around Birla house. Out of every window one could see a brown blur of faces. They did not make a sound. There was an unnatural silence. It was as if time stood sill for those few minutes.

The people were too stunned to speak in the beginning. Later they clamoured wildly, shouting and crying. The jostled one another in a stamped to break into the house. They claimed a little when it was announced that they would be allowed to see Gandhiji before his funeral.

When one is faced with the shock of a loved one’s death, one whimpers: “what will become of me now that he has left me?” This was surely the question uppermost in the mind of the mourning people. They looked like lost children. It was the question in many of our hearts as we sat, still shocked and unbelieving. We listened to the broadcast telling the people of India that there Bapu was no more.

Gandhiji’s funeral was to take place the day after his death. Hours in advance, people lined the route the funeral procession was to follow. Padmasi, Mrs Naidu’s daughter, spoke for all when she said simply : We will walk.  It is the last time we shall be walking with Bapu.

It was an agonizing walk. Thousands silently watched the procession. Bapu lay on an open truck covered with flowers. Thousands of people wept, trying to touch Bapu’s feet. It was impossible to move in the thick crowd.

As I moved forward slowly I understand I was not merely in the midst of grieving people. This was even more than the funeral procession of India’s beloved leader. I was among people for whom walking with Bapu had a special meaning. We had walked with Bapu over the rough and smooth of India’s recent history. We could not now accept the fact that the man who had led us over many difficult paths, was never going to walk with us again. Bapu’s slight figure had walked, staff in hand, over a large part of India. To walk is to make slow progress. It is to think with clarity and closely look at all that is around you, from small insects to the horizon in the distance. Moreover, to walk was often the only way open to the average Indian. It required no vehicle except his own body and coast him nothing but his energy. Gandhiji took this necessity, as he took much that was commonplace and transformed it into a joyful effort.

Some days after the funeral, a special train took Gandhiji’s ashes to Allahabad. The compertment was decked with flowers. People on the train sang bhajans. People did not weep anymore for they could feel Gandhiji’s presence amid the flowers and the songs. At every station sorrowful crowds filled the platform. Amid songs and prayer the train reached Allahabad. The ashes were immersed in the Ganges where a huge crowd had gathered at the bank. Afterwards we all went back to Delhi.

Back to Delhi, I felt at sea. I had not directly walked with Gandhiji, gone to the prison at his call or made any sacrifice for my country. My sisters and I, had other young people like me, had been merely onlookers. But still I felt I had grown up within a magic circle. With Bapu’s passing away, I felt the magic circle had vanished, leaving me unprotected.

With an effort I roused myself. I asked myself – had Bapu lived and died for nothing? How could I so easily lose courage when he was longer there? My values were not so weak. Millions of people would have been ordinary folk but for Bapu. He brought them out of indifference and awakened then one another’s suffering. What if now Bapu is gone? We were still there, young, strong and proud to bear his banner before us.

Bapu had passed away but his India would continue to live in his children.