Character Analysis
This guy (a writer and translator Gandhi meets in England), is super fun. He has a shabby appearance—"a clumsy pair of trousers, a wrinkled, dirty, brown coat after the Parsi fashion, no necktie or collar [...] a long beard" (1.22.1)—but doesn't care what people think about him. At all.
He and Gandhi study languages together because Narayan Hemchandra is trying to learn as many as possible. He's just awesome like that. They also go meet an official, but Gandhi's new friend refuses to dress up, saying:
"You civilized fellows are all cowards. Great men never look at a person's exterior." (1.22.23)
We're pretty sure the main purpose of Narayan Hemchandra in this book is comic relief, although he does teach Gandhi a thing or two about not being vain.