Thank You, Gandhi

When a bureaucrat who witnessed the Bhopal gas tragedy firsthand passes away from Covid, he leaves behind his oldest friend and an unfinished book.

An impassioned lament, a nostalgic tribute and a poignant ode to boyhood, Thank You, Gandhi is a unique blend of fiction and nonfiction, past and present, memoir and social commentary, and ultimately an uncategorizable book that pays homage to the enduring legacy of the father of our nation. At its epicentre sits the profound bond between K and Munna whose lives are inextricably intertwined with India’s tumultuous history and Gandhi’s teachings.

The ingenious metafictional device of the book inside the book becomes a timely conversation between two nations, one of the past and one of the present. When K pieces together Munna’s manuscript, feeling honour-bound to complete it, he discovers his late comrade all over again. Even as he grapples with India’s complex political landscape and the challenges of upholding Gandhi’s ideals in a rapidly changing world, the bifocal lenses of Munna’s experiences and his own introspections serve as a turbulent reckoning.

A novel unlike any other, Thank You, Gandhi takes readers into a liminal space beyond the confines of genre and invites them to confront the difficult questions of where we are and how we got here through a layered and rare exploration of male camaraderie.