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Character Role Analysis

Narayan Hemchandra, Gandhi

Contrast Gandhi's efforts to become an English gentleman (1.15.1-10)—studying French, dancing and the violin along with buying and wearing fancy clothes—with Narayan Hemchandra (1.22.1-33), the writer and translator he meets.

Hemchandra doesn't care what he looks like, and even wears ragged clothes to go meet an official bigwig. He even gets arrested in the United States for being indecently dressed. All he cares about is writing, learning foreign languages, and traveling; it doesn't matter to him what other people think.

Gandhi's efforts in England to become a proper gentleman are really overboard, a big contrast to Hemchandra. Gandhi eventually gives up his punctiliousness in dress (as he eloquently calls it), so maybe Hemchandra was an influence on him in that respect.