Book Review - The Silent Reformer: A Biographical Novel on the Life of Revered Pandurang Shastri Athavale

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.

Book Blurb

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 Dada ji and has become historical document of Rev.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

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.

English edition can be found at Amazon & Flipkart
Gujarati edition can be found at Amazon & Flipkart

Review from other readers can be found at GoodReads