Information is currency for this 70-year-old man who has written several books on Indian bank notes. In a certain light, from the neck up, Jhunjhunwala even looks a bit like the man on these notes. But that is hardly surprising given how much of this businessman's office, mind, diaries and seaview home have been annexed by the Mahatma.
On Jhunjhunwala's lavish center table right now, Gandhi sits not as a salt satyagrahi but a pepper shaker. In one wooden box, Gandhi is a translucent perfume bottle with a detachable neck. In another, he is number 10 on the dial of a strapless watch, unrecognisable in a moustache and a turban. He also stands with a stick on the golden nib of a Mont Blanc ink pen whose smooth white body is dressed in Khadi texture. One by one, as the leader emerges from Jhunjhunwala's study, in various avatars, the living room turns into a giant 3D biography. A tactile seventh standard history lesson.
"I am just a sweeper," says the second-generation heir of a rubber firm who has at least two male cooks, two women domestics and a secretary. "I am scouring the earth for valuables so everything is in one place," says the incorrigible collector, philatelist and numismatist whose collection includes three LP records of Gandhi's speeches and plastic binders full of stamps, handwritten letters and envelopes from abroad addressed to 'Gandhi, India' that had reached.
Jhunjhunwala's wife, Radha, laughs in quiet resignation in the backdrop as her husband begins a story she has heard many times, his 45-year-old tryst with Gandhi. As a school kid, history aficionado Jhunjhunwala, who would religiously preserve coins, notes and stamps, stumbled upon a few rare Gandhi stamps printed in Western Africa near VT station in 1969.
"I was hooked," says the businessman. "I have always found Gandhi's ideals inspiring. 'Hate the sin, not the sinner' was his philosophy," he says, pointing to his genial secretary to add that: "If he drinks, it does not make him a bad person." Such lessons are what this affluent sweeper looks for in his stash of rare Gandhi documents, that range from simple correspondence with clients as an attorney to a palm print undersigned, "This is not important what you do with this, but how you do it." Many of the foreign Gandhi collectibles come to him from his trusted circle of fellow collectors, dealers and friends, one of whom even sponsored Jhunjhunwala's stay in Johannesburg and Durban recently. But mostly, Jhunjhunwala has to haggle, convince, travel and even sweat it out to build his collection, sometimes literally. Not only has he covered all seven Gandhi museums in the country but also walked for weeks in the re-enactment of the Dandi march held at Sabarmati in 2005. Here, a fellow collector teased him saying he had a rare Gandhi stamp that, for some reason, he refused to show. "You are worse than Godse," snapped Jhunjhunwala, forever eager to see collections.
He hates repeating an item and even following unoriginal thoughts ("Non-violence was Gandhi's virgin thought"). It is uncanny how anything and everything with Gandhi's name, face or even symbol such as the charkha on it, catches his eye.
Right now, for instance, he is filling a telephone diary with tiny Gandhi-related news clippings, snipped from the morning paper even before his wife has read it. Classified by city, it contains interesting landmarks, including the various post offices and railway stations named after the freedom fighter. "Did you know that Mumbai has 20 Gandhinagars?" He draws out a black compass to explain how he knows such trivia. "I am like this magnetic needle which only stops in one direction," he says.
"I tend to find Gandhi wherever I go," says Jhunjhunwala, who recently developed an exhibit which tells the story of Gandhi's life through stamps.
In the span of four files, Gandhi evolves from a wide-eyed kid into a loin-cloth-clad-legend, whose simplicity this businessman cannot get enough of. Though Jhunjhunwala refuses to divulge the exact value of his collection that runs into six figures, his most expensive possession, he says, is a Rs 10-stamp that says 'Service'. "It has risen in value because it says that," he says, adding that mistakes on stamps make them expensive.
Just like his idol, he likes to use metaphors. "I want to be the river that flows, not a pond that's stagnant," says Jhunjhunwala who says he recently sent back Yamraj (the god of death) who visited him in a dream.
His struggle for freedom now is the fight for space for his collection at home, but Jhunjhunwala, who plans to pass on his material to someone who would take care of it, is working on more trips. "Mangalyaan needed ISRO's directions to reach Mars," he says. "I get directions and money for my hobby from God." At this point, his secretary excitedly points out of the window. A majestic peacock that has just wandered in to the compound of Jhunjhunwala's Walkeshwar home but the 70-year-old does not look. His eyes are reserved for another national figure.
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