The Silent Reformer: A Biographical Novel On The Life Of Revered Pandurang Shastri Athavale

by Rajendra Kher

English translation of best-selling Marathi biographical novel on the life of Revered Pandurang Shastri Athavale, founder of Swadhyay Parivar, who introduced universal way of life, way of worship and way of thinking to achieve spiritual height. Revered Pandurang Shastri (Dadaji) was an activist philosopher who formed the family (parwar) of millions of Swadhayees World-wide. He was recipient of 100s of awards including Magsaysay award, Templeton Award, Gandhi award, Tilak award etc. This novel is entirely based on his life, thoughts and work. Mr. Kher had personal interviews with Rev. Dada ji within the period of 3 & half years and then and then he wrote this novel. Hence, this book presents firsthand information about Rev. Dada ji and has become historical document of Rev. Pandurang Shastri's life and work.

Genres: Marathi, Biography

622 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 1999

About the author

I was graduated from Pune University in 1983. My father, late Mr. B. D. Kher was also a prolific author who was the recipient of many national and international awards including Soviet Land Nehru Award, Maharashtra State Award.

I have been writing since past 22 years. So far, I have 10 published works to my credit. All written in Marathi—the books have received tremendous appreciation from the readers and critics alike. Some of my novels are translated in three other languages. I am also the recipient of 5 prestigious awards.

I also had an opportunity to work in Indian film industry for 10 years and thereafter I worked as a Program Director for 2 years, for a TV channel.

Reviews

[Vishnu Chevli · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife was interested in reading "Shri Pandurang Shastri Athavale". So she requested "Kaya Bani Chandan" Gujarati translation of original Marathi work by Rajendra Kher. But by mistake, we got English edition. So responsibility came to me to finish the review. Though I have read biographies of a few personalities, spiritual leaders' biographies are not my forte. Still I too the challenge.

I read this book at a snail's pace. I was reading around 35-40 pages a week. Yes just 5-6 pages per day and it took more than 3 months for me to finish this book. It is not a boring book, but due to the depth of the subject that made my pace slow. The author has done a detailed research of Shastriji's life, it took him 3 and a half year of interview rounds face to face with Shartiji. So there is nothing else to comment on the profundity of the subject.

A serious work which requires serious efforts from readers. If the translation is as good as this book I may think about giving it to my elders as well.

Detailed Review Link - http://chevusread.blogspot.com/2018/0...

[DIPAK · Rating 5 out of 5]

One and only reformer after lord Krishna

[Vaishnav · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important insight into Dadaji's circumstances and thinking, captured through life events and lectures in this book. Its a long read because the book is dense - how can you compress the life of a person who has inspired millions into a couple hundred pages?

The time invested was worth it however to get an idea of really what sort of person Pandurang Shastri Athavale was, I learnt many things about philosophy and our culture while reading, some examples being: the meaning of Janoi; the motivation and path of idol worship and how great thinkers will make ideas their own instead of just quoting others.

I have some of issues with the book(I've only read the english edition). There are walls of text where the author describes the surroundings in extreme detail and also he writes some completely subjective/inaccurate things like, "billions of Swadhyay followers", there were also parts where other people's internal thoughts were written, and while reading I was thinking,"how does he know that ?", the style is just not for me, I would prefer if the book wasn't so airy and novel-like but was factual and grounded like Dadaji's lectures.

The translation was understandable but had errors, the translator probably read the book but didn't make an effort to research people who were referenced in the book so there are many spelling mistakes in names. There are also many other spelling mistakes, but that should be the proofreader's job. Also in places the translator had a very strange choice of words, for example whenever there was a silence or someone had a hidden smile, he would call it a 'pregnant pause' or 'pregnant smile'.

Let my criticisms not take away from the efforts of the writer Rajendra Kher, who toiled to make this book so that we can read it and learn and be inspired by the different but down to earth life of Dadaji - Pandurang Shastri Athavale

[Dilip Dhonde · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way of story telling along with creating the actual scenario is just like you are traveling in the time machine and you are the part of the story ...

[Ramesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally written in poetic hindi, unfortunately the english translation is not so captivating. Nevertheless still worth reading to understand pandurang sashtri.

[Jaydeep Patel · Rating 3 out of 5]

super