First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"Artists, especially pianists, have to be comfortable with themselves. It's what makes us unique. We have our own voice and process of creating. I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be completely comfortable with myself, but that's probably what pushes me to work harder."
"I am the complete optimist. But I'm also a very quiet, internal processor—a guy who kind of takes things in. I think that is reflected in my music for sure, just because that is my personality. I'm not a lively person but I'm animated. I'm not boisterous but peaceful, and I don't think that there is really another way to live my life."
"I’ve been playing for 38 years, and I will take lessons until I'm in the grave. There's always something to learn. We each have our own abilities — be it music, be it accounting, be it culinary. But there's this idea, why would anyone want to put a cap or put a ceiling on their craft, right?"
"I think what happens with classical music is that there is a concrete expectation of how it's done. For some people, that's their jam and I applaud that. I'm too sloppy of a classical player to be able to do that consistently. I want to hear colour and I want to hear and play something I've never played before. So that’s really where jazz came into it. You're learning a conversation, musically speaking, and then you're putting your own phrase into that."
"Melody is what makes a song a memory."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.