The Last Day Of Mahatma Gandhi
V Kalyanam
Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Delhi on Tuesday, 9 September 1947, from Calcutta. He was staying in Birla House at Albuquerque Road (now renamed Tees January Marg—30th January Road). A large carpeted room with an attached toilet was placed at his disposal for use by his entourage. This was an all-purpose room in the ground floor of the huge mansion. A thick cotton mattress and a huge pillow to recline, with a desk in front, was placed in one corner of the room. At the other end was a table and chair piled with correspondence. Gandhiji usually spent the whole day here attending to his correspondence, talking to people, spinning his charkha and taking his midday siesta. There was also a balcony, fully enclosed with glass doors, adjoining the room where he would sleep at nights on the carpeted floor, along with the rest of us.
Friday, 30 January 1948, dawned like any other day. We never knew what was going to happen in the evening. We got up as usual for our prayers at 3.30. We went about our daily routine with no thought about what the day had in store for us. Gandhiji roused his grand niece Abha to get up.
After his ablutions, Gandhiji came out of the toilet and squatted on the mattress. We sat before him. Gandhiji’s day always commenced with prayer. He described prayer as the key of the morning and bolt of the evening. His prayers included recitations from the scriptures of all religions, particularly Hindusim and Islam, in order to stress the essential unity of all religions.
(V Kalyanam, personal secretary to Mahatma Gandhi, recounts Friday, January 30, 1948, moment-by-moment—the day when the Mahatma was shot. V Kalyanam was just behind Gandhi when Naturam Godse fired his shots.)
