My Father No More!
By Maniben Vallabhbhai Patel
Originally published in 1974

Whenever doctors advised father to take special precautions, abstain from journeyings, addressing or attending meetings, etc., I would often say in the presence of father that when the zero hour will approach, they will wash off their hands in despair and father will be no more! And truly it so happened! For a month or more, one physician or the other was always at his side. When this fatal attack came, Drs. Nathubhai and Gilder were in attendance. Since almost a month, they were doing their best to ward off this catastrophe But what they were apprehensive of came to happen. Father had grown so weak and worn-out that it was beyond his little mute to stand to it. At the time of first severe attack in 1948, he was much better in health. But during this year he was deteriorating fast and for the last three or four weeks, he suffered the agony of acutest pain. All his life, he never gave out his grief of the body by a word of mouth. But at times, during this period, when the pain was at its pitch, he could hardly suppress it within. Then father would say in remorse: “Doctors, how terrific this fight with the death!” Thereupon, Drs Gilder and Nathubhai would put in: “Bapu, in the England, didn’t you go through a serious operation even without Chloroform? Pray have some patience, and you will come off well.” To it father would rejoin, “Oh! I was in the prime of my youth then!”

This serious illness and his body so reduced to bones! So I could not gather to myself any hope of his getting well again. His unrest and agony would often revive to my memory the last days of Ba (Kasturba Gandhi) in the Aga Khan Palace(1944) when she passed through the same ordeal. Dr. Gilder had then attended on her. “Are they not the same symptoms?” I said to Dr. Gilder, twice or thrice Shankar(Shri Vidya Shankar, then Sardar’s Private Secretary in the Government) more than once sounded a note of hope. One day, looking me so dejected, Dr Dhandha tried to cheer me up “Needs you to lose heart! His condition is critical no doubt! Still he will come through.”

I could not however quieten my mind Father’s outbursts: “Oh! What this fight with the death”, his repeatedly singing of a verse or two “When the fountain of life gets all dried up, Oh! Merciful God cast thy Holy Temple wide open for me,” and lastly his telling to doctors “I have prayed long and enough of it now!” – these utterances coupled with his listless looks at me would all add to my forebodings and despair. Sometimes, father would remark “Doctors this being the affliction of heart, I was anticipating my deliverance just with a collapse of it! But this is so awful!” He was afraid that for want of sleep to me, day and night, I might get ill. So he spoke to doctors and got two nurses – one for the day and another for the night. Still my mind was not at ease. The moment father would make a move to sit up in bed or heave out his grief of pain, I would at once run up to him. With what affection and love, he would then say to me: “Go and sleep my daughter, or you will get ill!” But for the last two days, this was his usual sweet rhyme for me. Whenever doctors pleaded with him to take sleep, he would stare at me and say: “It is she who really needs it.”

I was witness to this terrific agony of him day in and day out. So I began to pray within myself. “Oh God, pray restore him to health! But if that were not Your wish, I pray take him away without delay. I can not stand to this horrible spectacle of agony to him any more!”

Normally, he would not tolerate even the smallest spot of dirt on his clothes and would change them immediately. So it was painful to see him unmindful of his clothes dirtied at time during his last days. Once he spoke, “See doctors, the parts of this body machine are getting out of gear one by one.”

By the grace of God, he felt no attachment towards this side of life. I was afraid that he might worry on my count. On the last three days, sleeping-pills would not do.In twilight state of mind, his lips would open and some ramblings remarks would fall out.

Up to the last day, his mind was so full of thoughts for the country! He, however, spoke nothing on the last night. When the dreaded attack came at 3 a m doctors instantly injected coramine in his body and they kept oxygen tube close to his nose. All had lost hope. Shankar started ringing to Delhi that father was fast sinking. Rameshwardasji(Shri Rameshwardas Birla) called for two Brahmins and they commenced the chanting of the Gita. Gopi(daughter-in-law of Shri Rameshwardas) sat on my bed and began to recite it by herself. She finished reading of the entire text by 7 a m. And father’s pulse began to revive. The luster in the eyes again seemed to be coming back. A few minutes, and he regained his consciousness and asked for water. So I took the Ganga water and mixing some honey in it, I began to feed him with it. “This tastes sweet!” he remarked. He must have to taken two ounces of water. But soon he began to breathe hard. Restlessness overtook him. He would stretch out of hands to get himself to sit in bed. But on my telling him not to move himself, he would put them down on the cot. But, once or twice, he so quivered with pain that it made him spring up and sit. He then asked for the bed-pan, and soon thereafter, life in him began to ebb away. The veteran nurse beckoned to Dr Nathubhai who was standing outside the room. He came and saw the pulse missing. The lustre in the eyes was too fading out. He placed his ears on father’s chest. Breathing was getting slower and slower. At 9.37 am father passed away. It was Friday. Bapu too had passed into Eternity the same day!

My heart began to beat fast! What a wish I had to serve him to my utmost!

Shankar on phone conveyed this news to Delhi. Dahyabhai(Son of Sardar Patel), Bhanumati(daughter-in-law of Sardar Patel) and Bipin(grandson of Sardar-Patel) had been at his bed-side from 3 in the morning. Shri Morarji(then Home Minister of Bombay state) and Kher(then Bombay Chief Minister Shri B.G.Kher)came half an hour later. The sad news was also conveyed to other relatives.

In a short while, the Birla House was seen filled with the people. It was with great difficulty that father could be taken out to give him a bath. Up to Saturday, he was persuading the doctors to allow him to take bath. But they could not fulfill his wish. But now doctors, nurses and Dahyabhai together washed his body.

I got a bed ready for him. I then spread a white chaddar upon it and got a hank ready from my yarn. After he was bathed, a dhoti was worn round his waist. Then they wore him a shirt and carried him on to the bed. Then his body was covered with a shroud got ready from the yarn spun by him in 1940. I had taken that piece of cloth with me to Bombay thinking that out of it I would get a shirt ready for him. But God willed it otherwise. Shri GD Birla(well-known industrial magnate and philanthropist), Shankar’s wife, his two daughters and Ishwarlal(the manager of Sardar’s household in Delhi) came at 12.30 noon. Half an hour later, my father was carried outside the room and laid in state in a flower-bedecked pedestal in a spacious verandah(a ground-floor balcony). There I made kumkum(a red coloured dust used for auspicious mark on forehead by Indian women, also being used on ceremonial and funeral occasions) mark on his forehead and garlanded him with my yarn-hank. This over, the gates of Birla House were thrown open to enable India’s multitude to take his last darshan.

(From Gujarati – Maniben’s eye-witness account closes here. She was then too overlain with grief to note or even remember the further account of the funeral journey of the Sardar till he was cremated at Sonapur Crematorium)

– DeshGujarat

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