New Delhi: A little boy once captured on camera with Mahatma Gandhi years back is today forced to live in an old-age home in the national capital. The individual is now 87 and resides in the Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram in New Delhi with his 85-year-old wife Shivalaxmi. The development, under normal circumstances, would have depict the sorry state of elderly care in urban India where thousands throng for their second innings.
But not if the individual in question is none other than the grandson of the ‘Father of The Nation’. The man in reference is none other than Kanubhai, one of the three children of the Mahatma’s third son Ramdas. The couple has no children.
Such is their situation today that the old age home where they reside on the outskirts the national capital got its first AC on May 8.
Kanubhai’s condition is gathers relevance not for his frugal lifestyle – after all, even Gandhi advocated simple living – but for the comparison it draws from the other grandsons of Mahatma Gandhi, who lead nothing short of a lavish lifestyle. When asked about their condition, the couple remained silent on how they landed at the old-age home.
At the age of 40, Kanubhai left India along with his wife and went to America where he lived many years. After spending four decades in the U.S, he returned to India, and lived in various ashrams in Gujarat before moving to Delhi last week.
Every time the founder of the old age home Dr. G.P. Bhagat asks Kanubhai about the couple’s well being, he simply thanks him with folded hands, “We were homeless, you are so kind.”
However, the word “homeless” does not go down well with his wife. She is the one who fiercely protests. “We are not homeless. We are just a little clueless,” she says, “We don’t have a bowl in our hands. We don’t want money, we just want prayers. I am quite capable of getting us out if we were in the U.S., but here we do not know to navigate,” she adds.
We had both good and bad experiences. “People have their ups and downs,” says Shivalaxmi.
“We destroyed everything that we had and we came here. It’s a long story. We are searching for a place where we can meet interesting people. We are searching if there is any old-age home for NRIs here,” she emphasises.
The couple says they have “reasonable” money to opt for such a facility if made available to them.
“We were living a luxurious life until recently,” but “in the past one year, circumstances have made Kanu much older. Like the other grandchildren, Kanu was never interested in politics or staying in the media,” she says agitatedly discussing their ‘luxurious life’.
When Bapu ji was assassinated, Kanubhai was only 17, he recalls speaking to The Hindu, adding that both Jawaharlal Nehru and U.S. Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith sent him to study applied mathematics had at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Mr. Galbraith had initially suggested I go to Harvard Business School. But I said I won’t make it to Harvard because I am stupid,” says Kanubhai. He then moved to Hampton, Virginia, with his wife where he worked at the NASA Langley Research Centre. Kanubhai, as it turns out, has also worked for the U.S. government’s defence department. “I used to do research on aircraft wing structures for the fighter planes. So, I had the secret clearances and all that,” he said.
Sivalaxmi, a Ph.D. in biochemistry, first taught in Boston and later left the job to do research at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute.
“I did not quite like teaching students because it was enhancing the students’ lives while my own life remained static, teaching the same things year after year. Then I began research in this prestigious institute, but it’s on government grant. So when they cut off the grant, your research and everything ends and out you go!” she said.
Remembering the good old days, Kanubhai and his wife reminisce travelling to different parts of the country and “those profuse parties”.
“We have had fun! We were invited to so many parties as there are a lot of Indian diamond merchants there. Then we were invited to Amsterdam,” Kanubhai says.
He then adds in a low voice , “And now we are here.”
Holding his hand, his wife says, “We are in a valley just now, and we are going to climb out of it.”
