The Man Behind the Keys: The Story of Manilal Pathak
Every institution has its unsung builders—some lay bricks, others teach, a few lead. And then there are those who, in quiet corners, type history into being. One keystroke at a time.
Mr. Manilal Pathak was one such man.
He was born on 5 February 1944 in Jethwara, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh district. His father, Shri Ram Lakhan Ji, a Class 10 graduate and a freedom fighter with the Kranti Rashtriya Dal, filled their humble home with stories of resistance and patriotism. His mother, Ramraji, though unschooled, raised their seven children—six sons and a daughter—with strength and simplicity. Manilal, the youngest, is the only one alive today.
As a student at Pratap Bahadur College in Pratapgarh, he stayed in a hostel fifteen kilometres away, but it was not academia alone that shaped him. Early on, the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi stirred something deep within. Between 1956 and 1958, he spent time in Sharm Bharati, a social service commune in Jamui, Munger district, founded by the Gandhian and Sarvodaya leader Dhirendra Majumdar. There, he came under the influence of visionary thinkers like Acharya Ramamurti and Dhiren Majumdar himself.
In 1958, at just 14, having completed his Uttar Buniyadi, he was selected to visit Sevagram. The other three boys chosen—Dilip Bajaj, Ashok Dhaddha, and Sushil Kumar Maiti—eventually dropped out. Manilal did not. He came alone.
That summer, a young boy stepped off a train at Wardha, carrying a cloth bag, into the furnace-like heat of Vidarbha. He knew no one. But he had a purpose. At Sevagram, he spent four formative years under the mentorship of Shri K.S. Radhakrishna, Principal of the Nai Talim School and later Secretary of the Hindustani Talimi Sangh. Here, he studied Uttam Buniyadi and imbibed the values of simplicity, service, and silent diligence.
In 1960, Annasaheb Sahastrabuddhe entrusted him with managing accounts for the Kheti Vibhag of the Gandhi Ashram. During this time, Prem Bhai also worked in Gandhi Ashram. Later, he would earn a name by his work in Banwari Sewa Ashram in Sonbhadra district in Uttar pradesh.
When Radhakrishna left Sevagram in 1962 to become General Secretary of the Sarva Seva Sangh in Varanasi, Manilal requested to accompany him. Permission was granted. In Varanasi, Manilal immersed himself in the mission of rebuilding India from its villages upward. By day, he trained in Hindi typing; by night, he pedalled through the narrow lanes to attend stenography classes. He gained fluency in both Hindi and English shorthand and completed his 12th-grade examination privately.
His association with Gandhians brought him closer to the epicentres of post-Independence idealism. He served leaders like K.S. Radhakrishna, Acharya Ramamurti, and Dhirendra Mazumdar—contemporaries of Jayaprakash Narayan and Vinoba Bhave. Gradually, Manilal became their trusted scribe.
Opportunity soon knocked in the form of a pilgrimage. Vinoba Bhave was embarking on his historic Bhoodan Yatra, walking across India, urging landowners to gift land to the landless. Manilal joined him, typewriter and notebook in hand. As Vinobaji moved village to village, Manilal walked behind, transcribing speeches that stirred communities and sparked hope. He accompanied Vinoba to Bengal and Assam, walking alongside history, though he never sought its spotlight.
For a brief time, he also served as Jayaprakash Narayan’s typist. When JP’s regular assistant was away, Manilal stepped in. In a quiet room at JP’s home in Kadamkuan, Patna, he tapped out letters as JP dictated. One day, JP handed him the keys to a small flat in Rajendra Nagar. “You’ll need your own space to think and write,” he said—a gesture Manilal cherished forever.
By 1968, the journey brought him back to Wardha. The Sarva Seva Sangh had opened an office in Gopuri. There, destiny reunited him with Manimala Chaudhary, now Secretary of the Kasturba Health Society, who remembered him from his early Sevagram days. On a December afternoon in 1970, she asked him to take a typing test.
“A fortnight,” she said. “Let me see what you’ve got.”
Two weeks later, on January 1, 1971, Manilal walked into the newly established Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS) with a letter of appointment.
A wooden desk, a straight-backed chair, and a Remington typewriter—that was all. MGIMS had found its typist.
He began in the Principal’s Office near the Community Medicine gate, working with Dr. I.D. Singh and Mr. Shibendu Lahiri, the administrative officer. Over the next three decades, he would serve in the MS Office, the Dean’s Office, and the Secretariat. He took dictations from Dr. Sushila Nayar—letters, reports, speeches—typed with unmatched precision. He recalled, with quiet pride, typing every page of Dr. Jitendra Tiwari’s thesis in 1982—on his trusted Remington.
Manilal was a man of few words. Shy, with a gentle smile, he kept to himself. “I did my work, came home, and didn’t mix too much,” he once said. “But I watched. And I listened.”
In 1972, he passed the BA examination from Nagpur University as a private candidate. A decade later, in 1982, he built a modest home in Laxmi Nagar, Wardha, from savings patiently gathered over years.
Manilal’s connection to Sevagram was deep-rooted. He had arrived in 1958, just a month after marrying Shanti Devi, daughter of Anant Ram Mishra—a fellow Pratapgarh native who had renounced worldly life and joined Gandhiji’s ashram. Anant Ram had worked with Mahatma Gandhi. He had two daughters: Shanti married Manilal, and Lalita married Manilal’s brother, Ramabhilash.
Anant Ram was closely associated with Vinoba Bhave. Each week, he would walk from Sevagram to Pavnar to visit him. On one such visit, when he introduced Manilal to Vinoba as “my son-in-law,” Vinoba chuckled and said, “Then he’s my son-in-law too.” For years afterward, Manilal’s friends teased him fondly—“Double son-in-law!”
He became a familiar figure on campus: a thin man with bushy eyebrows, thick glasses, clad always in white khadi kurta and dhoti, walking in worn chappals. He rarely spoke in meetings, but his typing echoed in the corridors long after others had left.
Over the years, he worked with MGIMS stalwarts—Dr. I.D. Singh, Dr. M.L. Sharma, Dr. K.S. Sachdev, Dr. P. Nayar, Dr. K.K. Trivedi, and Dr. Kamla Desikan. He saw generations of deans come and go, buildings rise from blueprints, and students transform into doctors. Through it all, he remained steady, invisible, indispensable.
But he never asked for recognition. His service was quiet, consistent, almost invisible.
Yet without him, the letters would not go out, the theses would not be typed, and the voices of giants would not echo in clean, crisp pages.
His fingers told the story, one keystroke at a time.
Even in hardship, Manilal stood steady.
His salary was modest. When his eldest son, Satish, got admission to MGIMS in 1983, he wasn’t sure how he’d manage. He didn’t ask for help, but help found him. Dr. Sushila Nayar quietly arranged a small fund—fifty rupees a month for books and fees. Later, Dhirubhai stepped in too.
To make ends meet, Manilal began working part-time. In the evenings, he would cycle—old bicycle, no fuss—to work with Mr. P.L. Tapdiya, a chartered accountant, and Advocate Kakade in Wardha.
When his second son, Harish, got admission in 1986, Manimala Bahen asked gently, “How will you manage this one?”
Manilal smiled, “God gives friends. God will send help again.”
All three of his children—Satish, Harish, and Suniti—graduated from MGIMS. Sunil became a professor of radiology at Dehradun Medical College. Harish now heads Forensic Medicine at KEM and serves as the Academic Dean in Mumbai. Suniti, a pathologist, moved from Bangalore to Manchester.
Manilal had typed their first application forms himself—his fingers shaping their futures, one letter at a time.
Dr. Sushila Nayar passed away in Janaury 2001. A year later, Manilal retired. But he didn’t stop. For six more years, he worked at Sarva Seva Sangh alongside Shri Amarnath Bhai. And when that chapter closed, another began. At 81, he now lives in Madhuban, Bihar, with his close friend, retired Professor Dr. Rajkumar Jha. The two had reconnected—unexpectedly—through Facebook. Together, they teach village children, support local women, and do quiet, constructive work. No fanfare. Just purpose.
He never sought the spotlight. Never told stories from behind the curtain. But his typewriter knew them all. He had typed the letters that built institutions, noted the minutes of forgotten meetings, recorded dreams in black ink.
And somewhere in the archives of MGIMS, if you happen upon a file—yellowed, carefully bound, every letter aligned—you might recognize his touch. A rhythm only Remington knew.
That’s where the story lives. In the quiet click-clack of keys. In the life of a man who didn’t just work at Sevagram—he helped write its story.
He belonged to that.
