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accomplished writers. Just take out time to sit peacefully trying
to understand him and testing the truth of his life. We shall
continue to be inspired by him, such was his life. (I wished I
did not lose that opportunity!)

Shastriji worked continuously for joining words in the
Gujarati language. He was very proficient in his work. It is said
that in the year 1936 was held a session of Gujarati literary
council in Ahmedabad, under the Chairmanship of Gandhiji.
He was very strict when it came to discuss the joining of words.
When the Gujarat Vidyapeeth had prepared a dictionary of
joining words, Shastriji refused to approve of it saying that the
job had not been done well as yet, and there needed
improvement in it. He approved of it only when the Vidyapeeth
agreed to undertake the improvement work. You can see from
this instance his attachment towards purity and correctness of
language.

He wished to preserve Gujarati, and stressed that it should
be spoken in the family. All three of his sons are in America, but
their children speak in Gujarati at home.

It is due to his learning that he is better known as Dada or
Shastriji. He was only a matriculate, yet he guided 19 Ph.D.
students in their theses, and he had guided more than 1,000
M.A. students. The fragrance of his writing work rose to the
international arena. The library of Harvard University houses
a book of Shastriji.

It would be pleasing to know how well Shastriji wrote and
how correctly he wrote. A friend of mine, a proofreader by
profession, told me this anecdote. In the past, the books were
composed by the typesetter. The proofreader said that he was
fortunate to compose a hand-written manuscript from Shastriji,
which ranged over thousands of pages. Describing his
experience, he said that this manuscript had thousands of pages,
yet I could locate not even a single error, not one. You can
imagine from this fact how conscious he was while writing. How
much effort he made in his writing, was due to the fact that he
had not missed even a single Matra – small or big – anywhere;
completely errorfree. It is simply something great. There are