________________ Virchand Gandhi_blb.qxd 7/29/2010 11:27 AM Page 81 Personality as VRG, "Madam, I have your letter for who lectured at Blavasty Lodge, where which I thank you. You are giving me HS Olcott presided over the function credit of which I am wholly unde- (Old Diary Leaves - Henry S Olcott) serving. You are thinking of another Mr. and they interacted with each other and Gandhi my name-sake but in no way in his diary he mentioned VRG as a related to me. He and I were, however, "distinguished Jain", but Josephine friends and lived together for some time. Ransom seems to have mixed up MK You will be sorry to hear that he died Gandhi with Virchand Gandhi and many years ago, leaving an only son. It wrongly mentioned that Olcott was was he who visited America and made introduced to MK Gandhi and this time many friends. I have never had the priv- also MK Gandhi was in South Africa. ilege of visiting your continent." Old Diary Leaves by HS Olcott menMark Twain, father of American liter- tions, "A profound impression was creature, was too impressed by Virchand ated by the discourses of Professor GN Gandhi and his philosophy. His news- Chakravarti and Mrs Besant, who is paper Buffalo Express had widely cov- said to have risen to unusual heights of ered VRG when Mark Twain visited eloquence, so exhilarating were the India. VRG displayed his hospitality influences of the gathering." Besides and accompanied him to Byculla, those who represented our society and Mumbai Jain temples on 25 January, religions, especially Vivekananda, VR 1896. In his 'Mark Twain on Biblical Gandhi, Dharmapala, captivated the and Hindu Miracles', GB Singh states public, who had only heard of Indian that Virchand Gandhi had met Mark people through the malicious reports Twain on his visit to India but somehow of interested missionaries, and were 'Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of now astounded to see before them and Samuel Langhorne Clemens' by hear men who represented the ideal of Andrew Hoffman mistook Virchand spirituality and human perfectibility Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma as taught in their respective sacred Gandhi, at this stage of Mark Twain's writings. travel, was living in South Africa. Said one Chicago editor: 'We have HS Olcott was lawyer and the co- been for years spending millions of dolfounder and first president of the lars in sending missionaries to convert Theosophical Society. Pyarelal in his these men, and have had very little sucbook 'Mahatma Gandhi' also brings to cess; they have sent over a few men, and our notice that it was Virchand Gandhi have converted everybody." 81
