Earthen Lamps

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

A few days ago Vinod Meghani approached me with a request that the Bhavan should consider publication of the English translation of a Gujarati book Maansaai-naa Deevaa authored by his illustrious father, late Shri Jhaverchand Meghani. The undersigned had the good fortune of reading the original Gujarati first in the early '50s as a school student and has re-read it several time thereafter. This book, written in 1945-1946, is the account of some of the major events that took place in the life of Shri Ravishankar Maharaj, a silent grass-root Gandhian, who worked to uplift some of the so-called notified communities and to rescue them from the criminal tract, which time and circumstances had forced them to adopt. The book was widely acclaimed, well received by the public, received the Mahida award and was translated into many Indian languages. Its English translation, Earthen Lamps, was first published by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, in 1979. Earthen Lamps can be classified as a memoir and also as a work on humanities. It depicts the phenomenal social work done during the years of freedom struggle by Shri Ravishankar Maharaj (Vyas), a staunch yet unassuming Gandhian, amid the communities in the Kheda and Charotar regions of north Gujarat Patanwadiyas, Dharalas etc., the remnants of Kshatriya communities, mainly village peasants, illiterate yet proud and righteous in their own way, who had to take to Crime owing to the exploitation and lack of political and social sensitivity. Ultimately the entire communities were branded as criminal and suffered the consequences of the insensitive officialdom and bureaucracy as well as an indifferent society.

Shri Ravishankar Maharaj believed that humane qualities could never become extinct and a tiny flicker of it could be revived into a blaze if a right one came along to nurture it and fan it into a flame.

The single-handed endeavour by the barefoot Brahmin in the region covers his untiring crusade against inhuman treatment meted out to these communities on one hand and efforts to steer them to the path of law and righteousness simply by treating them with love on the other have been chronicled by the author, Shri Jhaverchand Meghani, in his work that earned him accolades from Kaka Kalelkar, who described Maansaa?-?n? Deevad as a document of Cultural Reformation.