Bapu Ki Beti, Hamari Behenji

In January 2001, a hush settled over Sevagram. Dr. Sushila Nayar—our “Badi Behenji”—was gone. To the country, she was Mahatma Gandhi’s physician, a freedom fighter, a former Union Health Minister, and the founder of MGIMS. To us, she was the force that kept the institute upright. With her passing, leadership moved to Mr. Dhirubhai Mehta, who became President of the Kasturba Health Society and quietly took charge.

Seven months later, on August 15, 2001, I was finally catching my breath after a long project. We had just finished renovating the Medicine ICU. The paint was fresh, the floors looked new, and for once the unit felt almost peaceful.

That afternoon my phone rang.

It was Dhirubhai. “We need to bring out a book,” he said. “A tribute to Behenji. And I want you to edit it.”

I felt honoured—and slightly alarmed. He wanted the book released on her first death anniversary: January 3, 2002. That gave us barely four and a half months to collect material, edit it, design it, and get it printed. In Sevagram time, that was yesterday.

A small team, a big deadline

I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed someone who could handle language with care and firmness—someone who would protect Behenji’s memory without turning the book into a syrupy tribute.

I called Dr. Prabha Desikan (Class of 1984), then working at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital. Prabha had Sevagram in her bones. Her mother, Mrs. Kamla Desikan, had served as Secretary of the Kasturba Health Society. Her father, Dr. K.V. Desikan, was a legendary leprosy worker. More importantly, Prabha had an editor’s eye—sharp, patient, and unsentimental. When she agreed, I felt the load become lighter.

We also pulled in two energetic residents—Dr. Rajnish Joshi and Dr. Ashish Goel. They did the running around that such projects demand: chasing contributors, finding photographs, checking names, proof-reading, and still turning up for ward work like nothing special was happening.

Somewhere in the middle of this chaos, we travelled to Nagpur to get old black-and-white photographs converted into sepia. It was a small touch, but we wanted the book to feel like memory—warm, not glossy.

The cover problem

The articles began arriving—eventually forty-five of them—from politicians, social workers, staff, and alumni. The content was taking shape. But the cover refused to cooperate.

How do you put one life on a cover? A life that held Gandhi, independence, public service, and Sevagram—sometimes all in the same breath?

We debated for days. We wanted simplicity, but not dullness. We wanted something that looked like Behenji: plain, firm, unmistakable.

Then Rajnish Joshi solved it in one sentence.

“Sir,” he said, pointing to my shirt, “why don’t we use that texture?”

I was wearing a yellow khadi shirt.

We scanned the fabric. That became the background of the cover—khadi, not as decoration, but as identity. Over it we placed a photograph of Behenji sitting beside Mahatma Gandhi. The title came naturally after that: Bapu Ki Beti, Hamari Behenji.

When we saw the first proof, we knew we had it. Gandhi. Behenji. Khadi. Nothing extra.

Compassion, steel, and a temper

The book wasn’t meant to be a garland made only of praise. We wanted it to feel truthful.

It carried a detailed interview from the National Medical Journal of India, where Behenji spoke in her own voice. The essays captured her compassion and her fierce loyalty to the poor. They also mentioned what everyone in Sevagram knew and secretly respected—her temper. Not the petty kind. The kind that came from impatience with laziness, excuses, and injustice.

Prabha worked through drafts with quiet discipline, smoothing language, tightening stories, and keeping the tone consistent. We fussed over margins, fonts, spacing, captions—small things that decide whether a book looks like a tribute or like a rushed souvenir.

The release

When the final copy arrived, I took it to Dhirubhai. He held it in both hands and ran his fingers over the cover, as if checking whether it felt right.

Then he asked, “How much did it cost?”

“The printer’s fee is ₹1,35,000,” I said.

He nodded, and without any fuss, added ₹15,000 more—his way of saying the work mattered and the effort was seen.

On January 3, 2002, exactly one year after Behenji’s death, the book was released in Sevagram by Shri Krishan Kant, the Vice President of India.

That day, holding the finished book, I felt a quiet satisfaction. We had not just produced a memorial volume. We had preserved a part of Sevagram’s spine.

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