Page 178 - JyotipunjEng

Struggling Life
Nathabhai Jhagda

The voice of Nathabhai was loud and angry, but he possessed a
soft heart, full of sensitivities, who cared for others. Nathabhai
had not received school education, yet he was in the forefront to
make life meaningful.

Nathabhai struggled all his life, and he had to struggle
greatly with the death in the last days of his life. The body did
not cooperate with him, yet he succeeded to push back death a
number of times.

Nathabhai conducted public meetings at a number of places
in Gujarat, and anyone observing him could not guess how
much he struggled to reach that stage of life.

His childhood passed in penury, how could he get
education then? He attended school only for a couple of classes.
With an aim to provide some financial succour to the poverty-
stricken family, he started work at an age when a child is
supposed to play about. He was merely ten or twelve years old
when he held chocolate, biscuits, peppermint and the like in a
plate to sell to the people; he used to sell his wares in front of
Prakash Cinema in Karnawati Gheekanta extension of
Ahmedabad, and thus rendered some financial assistance to
his family. He invested invaluable five to seven years of
childhood in this work. In youth, he started to learn the family
occupation of gold work. During this period, he came into the
contact of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Kalupur. Thus,
the processes of becoming a gold worker and a Swayamsevak