ABSTRACT
In his Foreword to a biography of Harilal Gandhi, Ramchandra Gandhi wrote of his grandfather and uncle: ‘Harilal gave himself up to alcohol, even as Gandhi gave himself up to Ramanama. e son suffered privations, the father won martyrdom and, possibly, Moksha’ (2007: xi). is essay is an attempt to understand what Ramchandra Gandhi described as Gandhi’s ‘rambling wisdom . . . suggestive of an inebriation which is greater than sanity and worldly wisdom of teetotallers’ (ibid.: xii).
