Giant Among Pygmies

T.K. Mahadevan, whose thoughts and writings have for many, many years revolved round Gandhiji, has now attempted an altogether ‘new kind of book’, which he calls an exercise in philosophical biography. Deliberately shaking off’ the ‘shackles of factuality’, he stylizes the story, blows up one event, strikes irreverent poses and, oscillating in his pointillism between Carlyle and Collins-Lapierre, tries to ‘shock’ the reader into sitting up and thinking afresh. Mahadevan is determined to din into the world’s deaf ears a message which, according to him, has so far remained unheard.