Piyush Dadriwala of Dadri has performed a feat that leaves onlookers wide-eyed β and offers something remarkable to the visually impaired too. Dadriwala has etched, with a needle, in mirror image, what is believed to be India's first-ever book of its kind that can be read by holding it up to a mirror: the Shrimad Bhagavad Katha, spanning all 18 chapters and 600 shlokas, written in both Hindi and English.
Beyond that, Dadriwala has also needle-etched the Durga Saptashati in Sanskrit, the Sunderkand in Awadhi, a collection of aartis, and the Sai Satcharitra in both Hindi and English.
Asked what inspired him to write with a needle, Dadriwala said people often asked him whether his books needed light to be read β after all, reading normally requires it. After much thought, an idea struck him: why not needle-etch, in mirror image, the late Harivansh Rai Bachchan's world-famous "Madhushala"? He completed the project in about two-and-a-half months. Like his other works, this book is written in mirror image with a needle and needs no light to read at all, since on the reverse of each page the raised words feel, to the touch, like pearls strung on thread β easy to read by feeling the embossed script. That makes this needle-written "Madhushala" the world's first book of its kind, written both in mirror image and with a needle β a feat credited to Piyush Dadriwala, a resident of the town of Dadri, India.
Dadriwala is also an avid collector, with holdings that include matchboxes, cigarette packets, rare postage stamps, rare coins, first-day covers, pens, and autographs of world-renowned personalities β including Manmohan Singh, V. P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Hrithik Roshan, Lata Mangeshkar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh, among others.
By profession, Piyush Dadriwala is a travel engineer working at a large multinational company. He has also authored three books of his own: Ganit Ek Adhyayan, Easy Spelling, and Piyush Vani.