Places have memory. They are custodians of stories of another time. Johannesburg can lay claim to men like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and the story of how their extraordinary parallel pathways came to entwine in the mesh of history.Eric Itzkin, deputy director-general of immovable heritage for the City of Johannesburg and the author of Gandhi's Johannesburg, said the city is overdue for a tour that homes in on the political journeys of the pair and how the city's energy, ideas and spirit, in turn, shaped their lives.He said: "Both Gandhi and Mandela began their crusades against injustice in Johannesburg, a city where historic sites map their journeys towards liberation."In few other places did the environment uproot the individual as comprehensively as here, and this opened new possibilities of freedom."Gandhi arrived in South Africa aged 24 in 1893. He stayed for 21 years, 10 of those in Johannesburg. He was treated as a second-class citizen alongside blacks, coloureds and Chinese in the then British colony. It led him to campaign for equal rights and an end to discrimination. It would be the birthplace of satyagraha, his philosophy of "soul-truth" and passive resistance.Mandela arrived in Johannesburg from the Eastern Cape in 1941, escaping plans for an arranged marriage. In the city he would experience racism, but also be exposed to the intellectuals who would lead him to join the ANC.Itzkin's tours in the CBD in collaboration with the Johannesburg Development Agency aim to inspire tour operators to use Itzkin's tour blueprint to shape their own packages.The tours can be adapted or extended and Itzkin said there are plans to introduce a cellphone-based self-tour version of his tour.On Itzkin's itinerary are gems like the Bantu Men's Social Club, the place where Mandela, alongside the likes of Anton Lembede, Oliver Tambo and the Sisulus, established the ANC Youth League in 1944.Itzkin also points out Victory House, on Harrison Street, where Johannesburg's first elevators were installed but where Gandhi was barred from entry for a meeting with visiting American suffragette Carrie Chapman-Catt in 1911.In Newtown, the Hamidia Mosque is where Gandhi in 1908 led a mass protest which saw 1200 registration certificates - required for non-whites - burnt in defiance.On Constitution Hill, the Old Fort prison tunnel is the eerie passage where Mandela and Gandhi were both processed as political prisoners at different times for rising against injustices.Johannesburg would hold lessons for both Gandhi and Mandela. Gandhi, the high-caste Hindu, embraced Muslims and low-caste Hindus here, unified in joint struggle.Mandela, through meeting other intellectuals, shifted from an Africanist ANC to one that saw potential in collaboration and inclusivity, said Itzkin."I don't see them as saints or superhumans, but they are soaring figures who left unique imprints on Johannesburg and were, themselves, shaped by the dynamism of the city," he said...