Real-life Munnabhai lodged in Nashik Jail

SHWETA DESAI

Posted online: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 at 0000 hrs IST

Mumbai, January 7
He was just another goon from Mumbai going through the motions of the last of 19 cases of extortion and stabbing against him. Until he picked up a book, completed it in 15 days and spent the next 15 days in “introspection”. By the end of it, undertrial Laxman Gole (30) had become a real-life Munnabhai or, as others at Nashik Central Jail christened him, ‘Gandhi ka aadmi’ or Gandhi’s man.

The book was My Experiments With Truth, the autobiography of the Mahatma, sent to him by the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal. Ask him about the many similarities of his tale with the Bollywood blockbuster and he replies unabashedly: “Munnabhai was filmi, my life is real.’’

On June 5, 2007, Gole, then an undertrial, wrote to the special metropolitan magistrate’s court at Vikhroli: “I do not wish to waste the time of the court, I confess to my crime and I am now regretting it. This change in me has come after reading Gandhi’s book. I now want to walk on the path of non-violence,” his letter states.

Gole had been accused in 19 cases, of which nine involved stabbing. He’d been acquitted in 18 cases and was facing trial in the last, a case of extortion and stabbing. “There was no truth in my life, after reading the book, I realized how my life was full of violence and decided to change myself,” the frail man says, regret tingeing every sentence as he describes his murky past at a press conference in Nashik Central Jail.

A resident of Ghatkopar, Gole stayed with his family and assisted in running a computer institute with a friend. Then the lure of money led him to launch his career in crime, in 1991.

“I began extorting and stabbing people,” he says. His first crime was the stabbing of a migrant in a chawl. It had been a minor altercation over water. “To cover up one crime, I committed the second and it just went on,’’ he says in Mumbai’s typical Marathi.

While lodged in Thane jail, Gole received a copy of the summary of Gandhi’s autobiography, given by fellow inmate Pradeep Bhalerao. On being transferred to Nashik jail, he ordered a copy of My Experiments With Truth from Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal, in April last year. “I finished the book in 15 days and spent another 15 days in introspection. I realized there is something really wrong in the way I was leading my life and there is a need to confess to my crimes. After all, I committed them,’’ he says.

Eight months after that, Gole is a smiling, simple man, saying polite namastes to visitors. “I did not confess to have my imprisonment reduced. I have been given a punishment of two years and two months. I did so because I realized my crime,’’ he says. He has even advised three others accused in the last case against him to accept their crimes.

“He is inspiring other inmates to read about Gandhi and bring a change. His attitude is very positive and we are happy,” says Jail Superintendent A C Rane. After completing the daily chores of sweeping and gardening, Gole spends four hours reading. He’s currently well into Gandhi’s Satyagrahache Vichar (Thoughts on Satyagraha). “I also make other inmates read the books. For those who do not understand the language, I read aloud and explain to them,” he says. “The other inmates call me Gandhi ka aadmi. They are happy that one of the inmates has changed and will re-enter society as a good man,” he says, a little coyly.

TRK Somaiya from the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal says that after Gole, nine other inmates have asked for the book. “It was not just Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King who found Gandhi’s relevance. Even common prisoners like Gole are getting inspired,” he says.

shweta.desai@expressindia.com