“The beloved patient”

The historic immersion of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes in Bombay on his 60th death anniversary on January 30, 2008 was a nostalgic experience for Anahita Devitre, a 52-year-old Breach Candy resident who recently resigned after working for 29 years as a schoolteacher, reported The Times of India (TOI) on January 31, 2008. Her granduncle, Dr Dinshah K. Mehta, a pioneering naturopath based in Poona was Gandhiji’s personal physician and had looked after Bapu during numerous fasts and stints in prison, TOI elaborates. Mehta’s home in Poona has been preserved till date and is called Bapu Cottage, as a tribute to the Mahatma, the report reveals.

Clockwise from top: Gandhiji, Anahita Devitre and naturopath Dr Dinshah K. Mehta

"Their relationship was not merely professional. There was a deep bond of friendship that bound them together,” Devitre continued, adding that Mehta even wrote a book on Bapu called The Beloved Patient. Mehta was in Pakistan on that fateful day in January speaking to Mohammed Ali Jinnah on the need to fight the hostility between the two countries. "He regretted not having been with Gandhiji at the time. He felt that he might have been able to ward off the assassination,” Devitre informed the TOI.

"My mother, too, was closely associated with the Mahatma. She had even been a ‘walking stick’ for Gandhiji when he climbed the Sinhagadh fort in Poona,” she informed. "As a student, my mother was hauled up in front of the entire school for refusing to sing God Save the King.” Devitre grew up listening to her mother speak of how lucky she was to live in a free country, "So naturally I grew up patriotic,” a moist eyed Devitre told TOI as she watched the urn carrying the Mahatma’s ashes being led out to sea from Bombay’s Chowpatty beach.