The black board, used by none other than Mahatma Gandhi during his classes to teach his students, is still intact. While the world knows Gandhi as an apostle of peace, a leader of the freedom struggle and a social reformer, not many are aware that he briefly became a regular teacher to a bunch of kids and their parents in Delhi. He taught English and Hindi when he started living at Valmiki temple on what was then Reading Road (now Mandir Marg). That was perhaps the first and only time when he became a teacher in the true sense.
When you visit Bapus room inside the Valmiki temple, you will see several old photographs of leaders like Lord and Lady Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru with him. However, one painting tells you the story of this venerable room. In this fading painting, several kids are talking to Bapu in a very animated manner.
In the centre of Bapus room, you will find a wooden desk that he used. To the right is the bed that Gandhi slept in. Bapus small charkha is also there, close to the bed. He used to spin it for around 30-40 minutes every day. Everything is there in the same position that Gandhi left more than seven decades ago.
Gandhi chose this place so that he could live with Harijans. In those days, a large number of Valmiki families lived in slums at the Valmiki colony close to the temple. They worked as sweepers in areas like Gole Market, Irwin Road (now Baba Kharak Singh Marg) and Connaught Place. Many Valmiki familes still live there now, though in decent flats. The jhuggies are long gone.
In 1946, Gandhi asked elders of the Valmiki colony if could stay there for a couple of months. They gladly agreed. Gandhi stayed there from April 1, 1946, to June 10, 1947 — for 214 days, to be precise.
“Once he moved to Valmiki colony, he started interacting with the families. He was shocked to learn that they were all illiterate. Nobody had even seen a school. Then he asked them to send their kids to him as he would teach them. People started sending their kids to his classes,” says Krishan Vidhyarti, a priest and caretaker of the temple. Vidhyartis father and uncles also attended Bapus classes. Gandhi wanted to teach them to read and write basic English and Hindi. And he ensured that his classes took place both in the morning and evening, without fail.
Gandhi was a hard task master. He would chide students if they turned up in his class without taking a bath. He was also a conscientious teacher. He would put off meeting leaders who came visiting to get on with his classes. Louis Fischer writes in his biography of Gandhi, “The Life of Mahatma”, “Once I reached at the Valmiki temple from my Hotel Imperial to interview him. But, he met me only after the prayers.” Fischer spent over a month in Delhi in 1946 to collect notes for his biography.
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