M. K. Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, is famously
incomplete, stopping abruptly in 1920. But while he gave up writing his memoirs,
Gandhi continued to speak and write about his life, family, work, colleagues, those
who opposed and venerated him, his hopes, anxieties, challenges, fasts, many
jail stints, his enthusiasms, and disappointments. When knitted together, these
autobiographical observations, scattered over several pages of the Collected Works
of Mahatma Gandhi, as well as in some works that were published in his lifetime
under his gaze, make for a gripping and powerful story. 'Restless as mercury', is how
his only sister, Raliyat, described the young Mohandas and her stunningly accurate
characterization of her brother provides the title of this work, which Gopalkrishna
Gandhi has reconstructed from Gandhi's own words.