I was having tea at home on the evening of 30th January, 1948,when I was called to Birla house by an uragent telephone. Gandhiji had been shot on his way to a prayer meeting. I was numb with shock as I got into the car.
At the Birla house, Gandhij's relatives and followers had gathered round his body. There was silence in the room as Gandhiji breathed his last. Words of Bapuji's and women had spread through Delhi like a flame fanned by wind. Sad groups of men and women had collected around Birla house. Out of every window one could see a brown blur of faves. They did not make a sound. There was an unnatural silence. It was as if time stood still for those few minutes.
The people were too stunned to speak in the beginning. Later they clamoured wildly, shouting and crying. They jostled one another in a stampede to break into the house. They calmed a little when it was announced that they allowed to see Gandhiji before the funeral.
When one is faced with the shock of a loved one's death, ond whimpers : " what will become of me now that he has left me"?
This was surely the question uppermost in the mind of the mourning people. They looked like lost children. It was the question in many of our hearts as we sat, still shocked and unbelieving. We listened to the broadcast telling the people of india that their Bapu was no more...