The Tribune's weekend supplement Saturday Extra of June 2 features a cover story on Saraladevi Chowdharani, the woman with whom Mahatma Gandhi had a close association in the early 1920s. Gandhi even considered taking Saraladevi, a niece of Rabindranath Tagore and an active participant in the militant nationalist movement of Bengal, as his 'spiritual' wife.

The Mahatma's grandson Rajmohan Gandhi's recent book Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, his People and an Empire confirms this “indefinable” relationship.

Now, V.N. Datta, a historian who has studied the relationship and the letters exchanged between Gandhi and Saraladevi, carries forward the story. He throws more light on this deep bond that might have gone beyond the spiritual.

Datta quotes from the letters to show that Gandhi was clearly dazzled by and "much physically attached" to Saraladevi, who was exceptional in every way and decades ahead of her times.