“My daughter is worth something”

Grandfather’s radical view of girls

Grandfather left home against his father’s wishes. It was India in the 1930s and Grandfather wanted to join Mahatma Gandhi’s movement.

His father wrote Gandhi several letters asking that his son be sent home. Gandhi wrote back. My mother has kept these letters.

Grandfather was a bit of a rebel. He not only disobeyed his dad, he also fell in love with a girl he wasn’t supposed to.

He was a Brahmin from Gujurat. She was a Kshatriya from Hyderabad.

Grandfather’s courting Grandmother was like a white New Yorker wooing a black person in Alabama during Jim Crow. It was unheard of.

She also loved him. They risked not just social ostracism but physical violence to marry.

They had a partnership. Together they worked for Gandhi. He sent them into rural areas to talk to villagers.

My grandmother was only 18 at the time. It was a remarkable thing, for a young Indian woman to travel and work as she did.

Sometimes villagers would welcome my grandparents into their homes. But other times they would have to fend for themselves. They camped in temples or outdoors. It was a hard life for a well brought up Indian lady, but my grandmother never…