I have known Shri Madan Gopal Arora for more than four decades. It is a sheer coincidence that his sons had been classmates of my sons. Not only this Shri Arora has also been my jail mate. Both of us were detained in Tihar Jail during Emergency.
The present book contains his lifelong memoirs. Before writing the memoirs Shri Arora quotes Nani Palkhivala.
“The best charity which one could do in India is to carry knowledge to the people.”
This is exactly what Shri. Arora has done all through his life in service of legal fraternity.
The memoirs are a store house of untold information of his long journey of about sixty five years in the book selling and book publishing trade.
The first chapter of his memoirs contains the painful journey of his early days. A partition of the country was a great shock to Shri Arora. His grandfather and father died one after the other in the refugee camp. He and his sister were thrown into a traumatic journey by train from Lahore to Amritsar.
Shri Arora started his career as a salesman at Allahabad in a law book shop. During this period he had a chance to meet some notable lawyers in the High Court. Some of whom became judges of the High Court and Supreme Court.
Ultimately Shri Arora left the employment and set up his own business. To start with his business from his living room, he used to sell books door to door on a rented cycle. By dint of hard work, he could establish himself as one of the leading person in the book trade.
During the 65 years of journey as a law book seller and law publisher, Shri Arora had the good opportunity of getting in touch with politicians, law teachers, authors, judges, scholars, and all those connected with legal field in one way of the other. Shri Arora may perhaps be the only person in the book trade to have written the memoirs of his life.
I congratulate Shri Arora from the depth of my heart for having written the most appreciable memoirs of his long journey in the trade, which deserves to be cherished by one and all. God may bless him to live for many years and keep on serving the legal fraternity.
In these memoirs, Shri Arora has touched each and every aspect of his life.
Dr. Janak Raj Rai
Advocate Supreme Court of India
