How a photograph of Gandhi’s kin, taken at a Congress meet in 1948, helped solve a riddle

Mother’s maternal aunt (maasi) Gool’s husband Dinshah Mehta was the pioneer of the Nature Cure movement in India and Gandhi’s doctor. Mehta’s home-cum-clinic in Poona (now Pune) was where Gandhi came for treatment and also where he would meet Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad and other leaders in the years running up to independence. Mother was Gool’s favourite, and she would often travel from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Poona where she stayed with the Mehtas and was inspired to be a part of the freedom movement.

In 1948, mother travelled to Jaipur with the Mehtas to attend the 55th session of the Indian National Congress held between December 18 to 20 under the presidentship of B Pattabhi Sitaramayya. It was the first post-Independence session and paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, who had been assassinated 11 months earlier. Mother had the 60-page Presidential address booklet autographed by Jawaharlal and Brijlal Nehru, Sitaramayya, Padmaja Naidu and others, a precious and historic document carefully preserved in my possession.

Now comes the story of the photo. It shows a young woman cradling her baby in her arms. At the back of the photo, mother has written in ink: “I took this photo at Sabarmati Ashram. Bapu’s grand-daughter and her baby. After the Jaipur Congress session.”

I was stunned when I came across the photo six months ago while archiving the family collection. Despite my lifelong fascination with photographs, I had no memory of ever seeing this one. It was only thanks to the caption on the back that I was able to place it in its historical perspective.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I could upload it on X (formerly Twitter) and tag Amrita Gandhi, the Mahatma’s great-granddaughter and my colleague at NDTV, where I worked from 1996 to 2000. A flurry of messages were exchanged, and Amrita put me in touch with her father, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who traced the background of the photo with the help of the archivist at the Sabarmati Ashram, Kinnari Bhat.

Thus, it was revealed that the baby in the photo was Lekha, daughter of Ansuya and Mohan Parikh. Ansuya Parikh’s mother was Rami, daughter of Gulab and Harilal, the eldest son of Kasturba and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. So Ansuya was their great-granddaughter and not granddaughter, as my mother mistakenly wrote, skipping one generation and Lekha the great-great-granddaughter.

Here is where the plot thickens, so to speak. Gopalkrishna Gandhi connected me with Lekha, now Lekha Balasubramanian, a resident of St. Louis, Missouri (USA), where she had gone in September 1970 to attend graduate school. It was here that Lekha met her future husband and fellow student, late TM Balasubramanian, and they were married in 1976.

Lekha was thrilled to see the photo and particularly the caption. Why? Because it solved the mystery of her birth date, which all records show as November 3, 1949, despite her parents insisting she was born in 1948. Lekha explained in an email to me: “My birthday is November 3, 1948, not 1949. One of the school leaving certificates mistakenly wrote, “1949”. In Gujarati, the numerals 8 and 9 are similar. Neither my parents nor the hospital where I was born had registered the birthday with the local municipality. They both thought it was the other party’s job. So no documentation of my birthday anywhere! Except for a few photos taken by my dad and your mum. By the time my parents realised (when I was finishing high school), they figured being one year younger wouldn’t be a problem. So on all official documents it is 1949.”

Lekha continued: “Your mum’s notation “after the Jaipur Congress session” is very illuminating. The infant in the photo is obviously a few months old. So the baby must have been born before December 1948. This is the first proof from an independent source as to my birth date. My parents had dated the infant’s photos, but that was not “officially acceptable” proof. My grandkids joke about my age all the time. “But are you sure”? My family has been excited about this photo in more than one way. They finally believe me!”

The fact that the caption states it was taken after the Jaipur Congress session indicates it was most probably in late December 1948, when the infant would have been less than two months old. And so was solved a family mystery dating back a lifetime.

Footnote: Lekha travelled to India with a group of friends, and we met last month in New Delhi. On her request, we visited the Parsi aramgarh (cemetery), my mother’s last resting place, on Prithviraj Road, just outside Khan Market. Here, the daughter of Ansuya, the young mother of the photo, and the son of the photographer, both our mothers being of the same age back when they met in Sabarmati, finally themselves met 76 years (and a month) after the photo was taken.

And so was completed the circle of life.

The writer is a journalist and author based in New Delhi