This book is a unique collection of pencil portraits of Mahatma Gandhi rendered by Ramesh Thaakar. Each portrait is accompanied by a note, a poem or a short statement about Gandhi, by a well-known personality from various walks of life. It is an intriguing and interesting collection which makes you curious to know how the collection was made. The story of Ramesh Thakkar’s initiation into portrait therefore becomes an essential part of the book. At the tender age of eight he accompanied his father, Somnath Thaakar, to see Gandhiji in his compartment, while the train halted at Wadhwan Camp (now known as Surendranagar). His father was an amateur photographer and took two close-ups of the Mahatma. The experience of seeing the subject and the photographer at that creative moment was etched on the child’s mind and spurred him to fi e decades of a career in portraits through drawing and photographs. At 22, he had the opportunity of staying at the Rashtrapati cBhavan and sketching the portraits of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first present of India, on his birthday. What’s more, he also sketched the guests who came, including luminaries like Harivanshrai Bachchan and Ramdharisinh Dinkar. Over the years, Ramesh Thaakar made 1,800 autographed portraits, as he convinced each of his subjects to sign the sketches. The list included leaders, musicians, actors, sportsmen and foreign dignitaries However there was one major lacuna; he d not have a signed portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. It was impossible to fill that gap as Gandhiji has passed away months before he began his drawing career. Undeterred, he deced to fill that vo by making 200 pencil sketches of Gandhi at various ages and stages, in different moods and places. Then he got each of the sketches autographed, often with a comment about Gandhi, by people who were contemporaries of Gandhi. This book brings to us a hundred of these sketches and reflections, with as many facets of Gandhi. The comments have been thoughtfully presented in Hindi, Gujarati and English. There is also a pen-portrait of each of the 100 indivuals who wrote about Gandhi, proving a miniature who’s who of Gandhi’s era. It is a book to be read at leisure, browsing a few pages at a time. It is a useful addition to a Gandhian scholar’s library and a reference source for the younger generation to knew a little about people who knew Gandhi in his lifetime.