The ‘Man of La Mancha’ is a 1965  Broadway musical  adapted from a  1959 teleplay ‘I, Don Quixote’; this in turn, was  inspired by the 17th-century novel Don Quixote by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. It is the story of the “mad” knight Don Quixote, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as they await a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. The Broadway musical has the captivating song ‘The Impossible Dream.’  When Fr. Ramon Grau landed in Anand exactly one hundred years ago on the 10^th December 1921 – he would have in all likelihood heard of his fellow countryman Cervantes and perhaps read ‘Don Quixote’. The song was composed more than forty years later; however, that is inconsequential. Fr Grau and scores of Spanish Jesuits who followed him to Gujarat, lived ‘the impossible dream’ in their whole-hearted and dedicated service to the people of Gujarat.

Cedric Prakash, SJ

The author is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer.