While Mahatma Gandhi is hailed across the world as a champion of humanity and nonviolent struggle, the struggles of the woman who accompanied him closely all his life, his wife Kasturba Gandhi, remain untold. This play script, Jagadamba, rights that wrong with a long monologue in which Kasturba speaks from her heart about the different facets of her life—an often difficult marriage, the great man’s selfless immersion in politics and its consequences for their family, their troubled sons and, most importantly, her own desires and hopes.
Originally conceived in the Marathi language for actress Rohini Hattangadi, who received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Kasturba in Richard Attenborough’s classic biopic Gandhi (1982), this play charts the journey of a simple girl who went on to become ‘Jagadamba’, or the ‘Universal Mother’, as the wife of the Mahatma.