Nepal, July 28 -- When orthopaedic surgeon Govinda KC began yet another fast on July 23, several words came to mind-an altruist, a stoic, a quixotic campaigner and a tragic idealist. Finally, I settled on 'an absurd hero' in the Sisyphean tradition: Someone who knows that goodness may not produce the desired result, yet chooses to be good because goodness, in itself, is worth doing. The similarity with Mahatma Gandhi is tempting at first glance, but neither was Gandhi purely a saint, nor is KC a sage.

Compared with KC's 24 hunger strikes in about 14 years, Gandhi undertook 18 major political fasts, though his total over 34 years was around 32, many for objectives such as self-purification. The two men also used their fasts somewhat diffe...