Shri T S S Rajan, born in 1880 in India, was educated as a doctor in London at a time when India was still part of the British Empire.
Rajan and an estimated 125 Indian students who were scattered across Great Britain decided to meet for dinner at a restaurant as a sign of Indian patriotism and solidarity. They sought out a speaker from among the leading front-rank Indian politicians.
There were no takers, except one, a barrister named Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (whose name later became Mahatma which in Sanskrit means “great soul”).
Ghandi had but one requirement. Instead of meeting at a restaurant he insisted on a pukka vegetarian Indian dinner organized in any way the group decided.
Rajan and his cohorts reserved a hall, purchased all of the food, and set about cooking Indian dishes in preparation for a 7:30 evening dinner. Rajan writes, “About 2 p.m., a “small, thin, wiry man with a pleasant face joined us in work and was making himself very useful.” He kept working through the dinner and the clean-up and then set down to address the group.
Ghandi started his speech by saying “how pleased he was to see us tuck up our sleeves and do the work in the way that we had done. He was agreeably surprised to know that the Indian students in London, sons of well-to-do parents, did…
