Satsang "SHIRDI DIARY' DADASAHEB KHAPARDE

Dadasaheb as Ganesh came to be known in his later life became first a juniorfellow and then a senior fellow in the Elphinstone College and in thesecapacities assisted in teaching Sanskrit and English. It may be stated herethat Dadasaheb was a born linguist for he was at home in other languageslike Gujarathi and was an orator of no mean order in all these languages.Following graduation, Dadasaheb majored in law in 1884 and soon commencedhis legal practice. After an early stint of service as a mu nsiff between188 5 to 1889, he returned to the bar and soon established a name as aleading lawyer. From 1890, he started participating in public life aridbecame the President of the District Council in 1890. By 1897, when theannual session of the Indian National Congress was held in Amraoti, he hadbecome a prominent figure in the national life and was elected as theChairman of the Reception Committee. We will now go back a little in timeand see how and when Dadasaheb started maintaining his diary of daily eventsand how many such diaries of his are available.
A pocket diary of 1879 of Dadasaheb has been found. Though there are someimportant entries in it, many of its pages are blank and there are onlystray sentences on some pages. However from the year 1894 upto 1938fortyfive diaries maintained by Dadasaheb Khaparde in his own hand areavailable. Thus in all forty-six diaries are extant which are lodged in theNational Archives. It appears that no diary prior to 1879 or between 1880 to1893 was kept by him. Of the diaries of 1894 to 1938, excepting the one of1938 which is a "National Diary" of Indian make, four are "Collins Diaries"and the remaining "Lates Diaries" made abroad. During the first world war"Lates diaries" were not to be had and so those of another make were pressedinto service. Each diary is 12.5" long and 8" broad with one page for eachday and weighs 4 Ibs. and 26 tolas.
Dadasaheb carried his diary with him in travel. It was his regular habit torecord entries pertaining to the day in the diary before retiring to sleepat night and he observed this rule meticulously. There are many entrieswhich show that he wrote the record of the day at midnight, or even aftermidnight at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. in the waiting-room of railway stations beforegoing to bed. As he found it inconvenient in later years to record the day'sevents before lying down to rest at night, he began to record the previousday's everus the next morning. So references to his dreams, visions andsound sleep are found in these diaries. Whether the event was trivial orimportant, an entry about it is to be found in his daily record. The namesof hisvisitors, the gist of their conversation and dialogues with importantentities, in question and answer form, in detail, are faithfully entered inbold, neat and legible hand writing without any erasing or overwriting pageafter page. Even when he was indisposed, he did not fail to write his diary.Only on the day of his demise i.e. 1st July 1938 and the day before he didnot make any entries, the last entry being of 29th June, 1938.
(Source Shirdi Diary)http://www.saileelas.org/books/dairy.htm