For children: Dinu takes part in the Dandi march but, unbeknownst to him, a killer is on the loose

Far ahead of him were the other seven members of his team – the Arun Tukdi or Sunrise Army. Like Dinu, they were volunteers from the Gujarat Vidyapith in Amdavad, abandoning life as college students for a few weeks to join Gandhiji in the fight for freedom from British rule. Two of them, designated leaders of the group, were teachers at the Vidyapith and a few years older than the boys. There were two such Tukdi in total, each alternating between villages along the route, so as to cover more ground.

Well, the others were volunteers. Dinu was only here because his father thought it would “make a man of him”.

“Go, Dinkar,” he’d said. “Serve Bapu; make your bapu proud; make a man of yourself.” Then he had laughed out aloud, as if he didn’t think Dinu could do any of that, and his brothers had joined in the jeering.

Bapu meant father in Dinu’s mother tongue, Gujarati. It was also the word every person in India used to refer to Gandhiji. He was currently on a march, walking from his ashram in Amdavad, down the western coast, through tiny villages and towns, to defy a British law that taxed the most common...

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