Here is an unusual book. People may have read a great deal about C. Rajagopalachari and much more about the Mahatma. But this book which largely contains letters exchanged between them promises to take the readers close enough to see the two baring their souls to each other, to listen to each other’s sighs and whispers, share each other’s hopes and anxieties about the country and the people, about the freedom to be won and the ways of winning it, and, in short, about the larger and smaller households they shared. CR, like the Mahatma, was a keen communicator, diligent, if not as prolific, writer of letters. And the letters show the man. If they unveil his love and devotion to the Mahatma, they no less reveal his independent spirit, his courage of conviction, or as the grandson-editor puts it, “a relationship between leader and follower that leaves both free to differ but not to part, free to berate but never to let down, free to persuade but never to dominate.” They not merely take us to an irresistible presence of history but also to fine affirmations of human values and sensibilities. None who can connect with these noble seductions will read them without feeling grateful for it.

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