Ramchandra Gandhi: Talks and Writings
Edited by A. Raghuramaraju
Orient BlackSwan, xxxiv+274 pages, Rs 995
Epithets like ‘maverick’ were coined precisely for people like Ramchandra Gandhi. Trained philosopher, spiritual seeker, public intellectual – none would describe Ramubhai (1937-2007) fully. His way of seeking spirituality in unlikely sources while maintaining a healthy scepticism for most of the obvious ones, his way of joining dots and linking up seemingly disparate ideas, his offbeat humour and self-deprecation: there would be no way to put it all together in an anthology of formal essays. A. Raghuramaraju put together one collection, ‘Seven Sages’ (Penguin, 2015). For a better measure of Ramubhai’s mind, another collection was due – and it has now been published. It includes several of his public talks – on spirituality, on Hindi author Nirmal Verma, among others. In that ‘adda’ mode, he can’t help but hop from one idea to another, since his vision