Back to resources

Women’s Day: Rohini Nilekani says her 20th century-born grandmother was modern in best sense of the term

Others | Gender Empowerment | Mar 8, 2020

Born Godavari Ketkar, at the turn of the 20th century, she spent her childhood in the sylvan surroundings of the Gwalior palace, as her father was an ambassador to the maharaja’s court. She spoke of going to the little local school in deer carriages. The beautiful young Goda came to Belgaum at the age of 12 as the second wife of my barrister grandfather Babasaheb Soman. He had no interest in material things or maharajas. He and his blind brother Bhausaheb were known as the RamLakshman of the neighbourhood. He spent his time in social work and in getting his clients to settle out of court.

When he took off for Champaran in 1917, in answer to Gandhiji’s first clarion call for volunteers, Godavari, by then simply called Atyabai, managed not just her pregnancy but also the large house, with many mouths to feed. My grandfather got more and more involved with the freedom movement, and Atya’s home became the gathering place for visitors and dignitaries of the Indian National Congress. Her precious maternal possessions were hawked off one by one. She was no meek sufferer and must have expressed her opinion. But the cause was greater than them all. Swarajya and deshbhakti were infused in all hearts and she faced her personal challenges head on. She was sent ceremoniously to prison by the British along with her husband. She won prizes for spinning the finest yarn and hand-spun her own nine-yard saris. Remarkably, she also stood resolutely by her husband’s decision to undergo prayopavesha or gentle fasting unto death, when he suffered from incurable paralysis.

Much after Independence, when her son, Vice Admiral Bhaskar Soman, became the second chief of naval staff, Atya had a brief return to luxury in the Lutyens’ quarters. But her mind and heart had turned to austerity. And she was unafraid of making unconventional choices.

She spent most of the next quarter century living in a rented one-room tenement in the temple town of Alandi, the Samadhi Sthala of the 12th century Bhakti saint Dnyaneshwar. She took in a Varkari student, Sakharam, who, in turn, helped her with chores like fetching water. The Vitthal temple, the bhajans and Dnyaneshwari shlokas became her world.

Her occasional visits to our home are among the most prized memories of my childhood. Atya was a magical storyteller, imprinting the life stories of Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram and Namdeo in our minds. She was the most fabulous cook and, as I write this, I can almost taste her sweet gulpoli and her spicy pithla. The sugar and the spice she loved quite defined her personality too. She could drip honey when her grandchildren needed comforting. But she was not above throwing bitter phrases at errant autowallahs or others who came in her path.

Atya was my inspiration, and still lives on for me. As a woman, she was modern in the best sense of the word. She was imperfect but a seeker, she was feisty and fun but put duty above personal pleasure. She participated fully in life even as she withdrew into her inner self. Her Vitthal was a compassionate and forgiving God, her true companion and, ultimately, her home. She was a woman of her time, but perhaps a woman for all time, too.

Economic Times

PDF

More like this

Others

Keeping The Romance Alive

What is the price of fame? Incessant travel, for one. Constant tension over the fickle media, for another. Smiling all the time in public, posing for photos with strangers, suffering autograph hunters, being surrounded, squeezed out of breathing space. Does all this bother A. Hariharan, the south Indian singer who’s made it big in the […]
Jan 1, 2000 | Personality

Societal Thinking  |  Others

'Role of Societal Platforms in Education' at #ItAllAddsUp

Rohini Nilekani’s talk on the role of societal platforms in education made at the Akshara Foundation’s event on Maths: #ItAllAddsUp. How can we distribute the ability to solve issues together and restore the agency of every person in the system, so that they can also become part of the solution?   I’ve been at the […]
Feb 26, 2019 | Speech

Others

Manna for the masses - The demand for small loans from the country’s urban and rural poor is estimated at Rs 45,000 crore.

Why then hasn’t micro-financing taken off? Ms Nilekani has funded, Sanghamitra, which is a micro-financial institution that’s targeted at the urban poor. If you’re still wondering what such an institution does, well it’s actually pretty simple; It offers loans to the poor at decent rates. View PDF
Dec 21, 2003 | Article

Others

Woman - Marriage and Family - Kannada

Woman – Marriage and Family – Kannada. View PDF
Mar 8, 2008 | Article