A hundred years ago, a young Ramnarayan, a man of great merit, passion, and a revolutionary fervour, made a choice of a lifetime: to follow M.K. Gandhi and his non-violent way. Forsaking lures of a settled career, and easy fascination of a violent way, he plunged himself into the hard work of service in the cause of so-called ‘untouchables’, goseva, Khadi and such other constructive programmes. His immediate mentor was Jamnalal Bajaj, and his theatre of action was the then region of Rajputana. In the course of this service, varied roles vested in him over the years and he did justice to them with full commitment. He had spells of stay in close proximity of Gandhiji at his Ashrams, Sabarmati and Sewagram, with his family. In all this, he had the ideal support of Smt. Anjana Devi, his sahadharmacharini in the true sense. After Independence, he dedicated his time and energy to writing, translating, editing, publishing books — a huge list of them with high standards of quality. Through them, we have an authentic peep into the world of those rarest of rare times. Making the choice of such a valiant life, a life of service, sacrifice and self-suffering, and sustaining it with unwavering faith over a whole life-time required courage of conviction and conduct. It was indeed a herculean feat in itself with the added charm of living in the mystic aura of Gandhiji.
Dina Patel, a committed archivist, is the Director of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Cell at Gujarat Vidyapith (Ahmedabad).