The last lap of the
journey involved hours of travel across some long stretches of dusty arid land.
The wind blew thick clouds of scorching heat and sandy dust into our big four-wheeler which
rolled and jumped and bumped, across and over unruly roads and roadless
expanses. Finally, before sunset, when we reached our destination, I felt as if we had chanced
upon a big and beautiful oasis. We had then reached the banks of the Narmada –
before an ashram-like, humble dwelling inhabited by none other than the great
Baba Amte and Sadhana Tai Amte. The year was 1994. The place, Kasaravad in
Madhya Pradesh.
That night when the
lights were switched off and the whole ashram lay asleep, I was suddenly
awakened by a fit of cough (I was already suffering from a severe throat
infection since evening). Within minutes the bulbs in my room went aglow. I
turned around to see who it was. Sadhana Tai Amte. She had brought me a glass
of warm water. She sat near me on my bed, stroked my back, asked me to take it
easy, said it was all because of the heat and dust of the journey. Later she
went into the kitchen, prepared some decoction (I don’t know what it contained
– I think only mothers and grandmas know what such home-remedies are really
made of) and made me drink it to the last drop.
All the while she was
speaking to me on a lot of things – about Anandwan, about Baba, about life in
the Narmada valley, etc. After some time, when I felt quite relieved, she bid
me lie down, pulled the blanket over me, switched off the lights and went away
saying I would be perfectly okay by morning. For the first time, after I had
left home for Anandwan a few months ago, that night, I felt as if I was back
home and in the presence of my mother. I must say that I was then beginning to
understand the real Sadhana Tai, was then beginning to understand why that
simple and unassuming woman was adored and revered by so many as if she were
their own sister or mother, was then beginning to understand how Baba Amte was
able to build such a vast and mighty empire of love and compassion.
Soon I found out that
rendering hospitality, feeding guests, tending to the sick, cheering up the
depressed – and all such things she did always with an innate and inimitable
warmth of heart seasoned with a pinch of creative humour. Her humility,
humanness and humour had a tender magic of their own. Years later, in 2007,
when I, along with my mother, visited Anandwan the second time, I found that
age and work had worn her out a lot, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that
the spirit within her was still the same. Before our return to Kerala, during
the over two years of our stay there, we, myself and my mother, had the fortune
to know Tai too closely and to our heart’s content. We found the aged and ailing Tai always too
full of sincere care and concern for all others.
On the morning of our
last day in Anandwan, in 2009, when my mother and elder sister entered her
prayer room to bid her farewell, they were surprised to see her waiting there
for them too anxiously. On that day of the festival of Lord Ganesha (The
Elephant God) she was then distributing ladoos after offering it to the deity.
She had told me the day before that she would be waiting there for them then to
give those special ladoos and since they hadn’t turned up she was getting
anxious, minute by minute, whether the ladoos would be exhausted before they
arrive. As soon as she saw them she greeted them the most excitedly and offered
them the ladoos with immense relief and joy and sent one for me too. The
bitterness of her decoction or the sweetness of her ladoos linger no more in my
tongue, but the ‘sweetness sans any bitterness’ of her character will keep my
heart ever afresh.
A
Profile of the Personality
Once,
at a family wedding, Muralidhar Devidas Amte (now famously known as Baba Amte,
the Great Humanitarian) saw Indu Guleshastri (Sadhana), the younger sister of
the day’s bride, silently engrossed in helping an overburdened servant woman.
He was highly impressed by the compassion for the lowly, the dedication to work
and the courage to break conventions of this simple and silent Brahmin girl
which become plainly evident from this act of hers. He was quick to discern
that she was no ordinary Brahmin girl and that she would be to him the perfect
life-partner. Without any inhibitions, this till-then-ascetic, at once, made
his intentions known to the mother of the girl. It took her mother and the
others a while to digest this shocking but pleasurable truth. But the girl,
Indu Guleshastri, had just no reservations in accepting this extra adventurous
and out-of-the-ordinary young man as her husband. So, on the 18th of
December 1946, their marriage got solemnized. Ever since, she had been a great
source of inspiration, strength and support to him in all his activities.
It
was with the support and help offered by his wife that the young Amte boldly
gave up his legal practice, renounced all his property and set up the Shram Ashram (Hermitage of Labour)
for inter-caste living and manual work which was to become a forerunner to all
his future projects including Anandwan. He organized the social outcastes into
unions, cooperatives and societies to improve their abysmal socio-economic
conditions. He worked as secretary of sixteen such associations. All this
while, his devoted wife spent her time tending to the harijan women and
children and fending off a plague of poisonous snakes and scorpions around the
cooking area and under the cot. She had to even pay the severe price of exile
from her own family for this living with the outcasts. But without any regrets,
without any stepping back, with selfless dedication she ever walked forward
with her husband and remained the silent spirit behind all his missions. Over
the years she even served under various official capacities from working as an
accountant to shouldering responsibility as an Assistant Secretary of their
Trust (Maharogi Sewa Samiti). Throughout her career as a social worker, she was
popularly known as ‘Tai’ (meaning ‘Sister’ in Marathi) because of her genuine
friendliness, utter humility and heartfelt concern for one and all.
As
a tribute to her greatness, at even National and International award
presentation ceremonies Baba would always start his acceptance speech by
firstly addressing his wife (Smt. Sadhana Amte) rather than start by addressing
such honourable dignitaries as the President, the Prime Minister etc. Her
selfless service for the leprosy-stricken, the physically challenged and the
downtrodden have been honoured with various awards like ‘Chaturang Puraskar’,
‘Kasturba Gandhi Seva Puraskar’, ‘Matoroshri Puraskar’, ‘Dalit Mitra Puraskar’,
‘Millennium Award’ and ‘Grahini-Sakhi-Sachiv Puraskar’. Born on 5th
May 1926, in an aristocratic, Brahmin family, having lived a selfless and
simple life as a true ‘woman of the soil’, Sadhana Tai Amte breathed her last
on 9th July 2011.
