The write view: A new illustrated biography looks to humanise Mahatma Gandhi, not deify him

The 319-page biography, as the name suggests, tells the story of Gandhi’s life largely through pictures, interspersed with text. Kapoor, an established publisher, makes his debut as an author with this book, on which he spent six years. “The attempt was to humanise him as opposed to deify him,” explains Kapoor, who believes there is a need to discuss the Mahatma every decade or so in order to make each new generation aware of his contributions to the country.

The book features many rare pictures of Mahatma Gandhi. In this photograph, he can be seen seated in the second row, fifth from left, at the Greyville Cricket Club, Durban. (Source: PTI)

It was meant to chiefly be a textbook with a few pictures, but eventually, Kapoor had far more content and rare pictures than he had imagined. For the research, he started at the beginning, by reading school textbooks. He then spent a year studying the 98 volumes of the ‘Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi’. “A large part of the research remains unused in this book. I am currently working on another book, titled ‘My Experiment with Gandhi’, which will have a lot more text and fewer pictures,” says Kapoor, who started Roli Books in 1978 with focus on content for children. Over time, the publishing house has come to be known for its coffee-table books, and its expertise in the field can be witnessed also in the latest release, which features several rare pictures of the Mahatma, clicked by photographers from across the world.

But the author confesses that curating the pictures was the easier part of the process. “The writing proved difficult and challenging,” says Kapoor, who now feels it is easier being a publisher than an author. “Being an author is more a passion with fewer monetary gains. After my first experience of being on the other side of the publishing business, I now know that authors are grossly underpaid.”