Venkitaram Kalyanam, who was personal secretary to Mahatma Gandhi passed away in Chennai on Tuesday. He was 99. Kalyanam was the lone surviving member of the Mahatma’s team of personal staff.
Malini Kalyanam, his daughter told The Pioneer that her father was suffering from age-related issues but was conscious of what was happening around.
Kalyanam had joined Gandhi’s ashram as a volunteer in 1942 and later rose to become his personal secretary following the demise of Mahadev Desai, considered to be Man Friday to the Father of the Nation.
He was standing just behind the Mahatma when Nathuram Godse fired the shots at the former in the fateful evening of January 30,1948. “The death was instant. Gandhiji died within seconds of the first bullet piercing his heart. He did not utter a single word and fell into the hands of his two nieces Manu and Abha,” Kalyanam had told The Pioneer in an interview in 2018.
He said all talks about Gandhi reciting “Hey Ram” and asking for Ganga Jal were nonsense. “The death was instantaneous. There was no time to say even “Oh” because the death happened the moment the bullet hit his heart,” said Kalyanam.
It was Kalyanam who drafted and typed important documents like Gandhi’s will as well as Bapu’s last note to Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel about the need to disband the Indian National Congress.
In the 2018 interview to this correspondent , Kalyanam said Gandhiji was disheartened and disillusioned within months after the Independence. “He told me many times that he has neither any part nor any say in many strange things that were going on in this country even after the British had left, I am no longer the current coin I fancied I once was,” Gandhiji had told Kalyanam weeks before he was shot dead.
“The Congress was launched to agitate for Indian independence. It had no other missions. The party could mobilise the countrymen and draw the support of the whole country only because of the cause for which it was fighting. Once the country became free from the colonial rule, the purpose of Congress was over. What Gandhi asked the leaders was to disband the organisation and set up a Lok Sevak Samithi towards working for the welfare of the whole countrymen,” Kalyanam told this writer.
Kalyanam had accompanied the Mahatma during his peace mission to Bengal where the Muslims were on a killing spree following the diktat from HS Suhrawardy, the then Prime Minister of Bengal to get the region free of Hindus. “The Father of the Nation was consoling and comforting the victims who lost everything in the communal holocaust while India was celebrating its Independence,” said Kalyanam who was with Gandhi on Noakhali at the time of partition.
Kalyanam lived like a true Gandhian and was particular about simplicity. cleanliness, gardening, discipline and diligence. He never appointed any assistants to help him and did all works by himself, whether it is cooking or cleaning or washing. Till his last breath, he had kept a cheque issued by the Mahatma in his favour as a settlement of a debt. Though antique collectors had approached Kalyanam with dream prices, he stood his ground and did not part with it. During the 2013 agitation launched by Anna Hazare against corruption, Kalyanam was in the forefront of the demonstration held in Chennai.
He is survived by two daughters Malini and Nalini. Born in 1922, Kalyanam shares his birthday with Independent India.