Like Lal Bahadur Lalita was also a very simple person of no vanity. She was traditional and religious. Lalita was all what humble Lal Bahadur richly deserved, a person who would become his domestic security and the moral strength.
There was no trace of the arrogance and ego of the rich upbringing in her.
When she was merely ten years old she displayed rare compassion, a natural quality she was born with.
Her family had a poor barber as its next neighbour. The barber had six children of minor ages, the eldest being twelve years old. Then, a tragedy struck in that family. The bread winner of the family, the barber died due to some illness. The family immediately fell on bad days.
There was no other earning members.
The poor barber had always hardly managed to feed his wife and children. There was no question of his saving any money. The orphaned children and their mother began to starve.
Ten year old Lalita understood their tragedy and the predicament. It made her very sad. She put a quantity of rice, dal and other provisions in a piece of cloth, tied them into a bundle and threw the same into the compound of the poor family over the wall.
She had done it stealthily without telling about it to any member of the family.
She continued to do it whenever she could or the chance presented itself. One day her sister-in-law caught her in the act.
Lalita’s mother was informed about it. The mother rebuked the daughter soundly. Lalita was hurt. She wept and continued crying. The mother realised then how sensitive her child was. She had to do a lot of comforting to mollify Lalita.
Lal Bahadur revealed to his bride in what trying conditions his mother had brought him up, the sacrifices she had made and the hardships suffered. He urged Lalita not to do anything to hurt his mother and to make her comfortable and happy whatever it took.
He shouldn’t have worried on that score. Lalita was a trained by tradition to respect and serve the parents of her husband. It would be like a religious duty to her.
Ramdulari posed no problem’s to Lalita. Infact she was a kind, softspoken lady mellowed by the hard life. Inspite of being orthodox she was no fault finding woman unlike other mothers-in-law of Indian families who find sadistic pleasure in tormenting daughter-in-laws. She treated Lalita as her own daughter.
They bonded well very soon to the great relief of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Now his widowed sister had also joined the family with her children. The family members became very close to one-another.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was stationed in Meerut as he was in the service of the ‘Servants of the Peoples Society’. He often had to go on tours of the neighbouring areas in connection with the work of the society. The family was with him.
He had rented upper floor of the house the ground floor of which served as the office of the organisation. It suited his purpose. His family was not alone in his absence as the workers of the society were always present in the office.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was ever helpful to Lalita. He used to wash his clothes himself often. Sometimes he would sneak into the bathroom to help his wife if he thought that she had too many clothes to wash. This brought them sentimentally more closer. Lal Bahadur Shastri had done all those chores in his student life.
And helping her pleased him.
Her workload had increased since her widowed sister-in-law had come over to live with them. There was no water supply to the upper floor. So, the water had to be carried manually to their house. This task was mostly done by Lalita herself. It was a back breaking job. Lal Bahadur often helped her carry up water. Whenever he was in town he did most of that job as it was noticed that the overwork was telling upon the health of Lalita. Mostly she looked exhausted. She had to work from 5 a.m. to midnight.
Many a time Lal Bahadur forced her to sleep longer in the mornings making excuse that he was doing his paper work.
Lal Bahadur Shastri could not afford a servant. The society he worked for was a social service organisation dedicated to the service of the freedom of India. It could pay little, just a sustenance money. Its employees too were in the general sense paid volunteers.
The people would not understand it. The impression amongst the rural folks was that Lal Bahadur was a big officer of a company even the British were afraid of. Such folksy legends brought hordes of backwoods guests to Shastri household.
The humble Shastri family would treat them as guests and try to explain that Lal Bahadur was merely a political worker who had little power to provide employments or grant contracts.
Thus, Lal Bahadur’s entire earnings were getting used up. It was very difficult for Lalita to financially cover the expenses. They were hardly making both ends meet.
Sometime later, Lal Bahadur was made secretary of the District Congress Committee. He shifted to a more spacious accommodation. The new home had two bedrooms, study room, kitchen, bathroom, verandah and courtyard.
It had two floors.
The study room served as his office and guest room. It was not cluttered with furniture. There was a simple large cotton sheet spread on mats to sit. The visitors and guests could eat food sitting on the matted floor.
Lalita had to cook food for the guests, of course. Usually the Shastri couple would go without meals as guests ran out the food. During winters the guests would take all the available quilts and the blankets leaving the couple with only bed sheets to cover themselves with.
That was how life went by for Shastris.
Years passed and Lalita never had more than two blouses and a pair of sarees. Lal Bahadur himself had few clothes. He would not cast away even torn Kurtas on the plea that he could wear them in winters under the coat.
The money was always in short supply. Once an industrial fair was on in the town. As the secretary of the Congress Committee he was living in Allahabad. All the neighbourhood people had seen the fair. Lalita heard a lot about it from them.
She too wanted to see the fair. She asked Lal Bahadur to take her to the fair. He promised and asked her to be ready in the evening. But he came home late at night with some excuse and apologized. The next promised evening same thing happened again. It was repeated two more times.
Enough was enough. This time Lalita blew her top. Her sister-in-law had been teasing her. Lal Bahadur felt guilty and promised that he won’t fail her next time.
He did come home in time. Before departure she asked her husband if he had some money on him in case she wanted to buy something. He only had two rupees on him. Lalita thought that they should at least have five rupees to make the visit to the fair worthwhile.
“What is the fun in going to a fair like beggars?” she argued.
Lal Bahadur Shastri asked her to borrow five rupees from his sister and thus they went to the industrial fair.
In the fair, whenever Lalita stopped at any stall wanting to buy an item Lal Bahadur would march on saying that the next stall might have something better to offer. He continues this ruse at every stall Lalita stopped at.
The result was that she could buy nothing.
When they returned home he said, “Dear, sorry for not letting you buy anything. Personally I feel that there is nothing worth buying with the borrowed money. It gives no pleasure.”
Lalita returned the money to her sister-in-law.
Lal Bahadur remained tight fisted in every respect all his life. His only extravaganza or indulgence was his ‘Gandhi cap’ which he always wanted crisply ironed. It was his obsession.
He only got some nice dresses for himself and presentable sarees for Lalita when he became a minister and then Prime Minister. Those high positions required him to be properly dressed in offices or in official functions where he had to meet other dignitaries. His wife also had to attend functions herself or accompany him.
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