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April 10, 2026
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"I visit it by day, I visit it at nightfall. I always stand by the lamentation drum!"
"I really think that the drums are as poetic and romantic as any instrument."
"It's not like I don't know I'm playing loud. I mean, that's drumming. If you want polite, go listen to the MJQ. If you want soft, listen to . See, that's part of the ethic and whole world of drumming: drums are meant to be loud. It's like telling a piccolo player, "Don't play high" or telling a trumpet player, "Don't be so brassy" or telling a bass player, "Don't play so low." Volume, physicality, and aggressiveness are part of what drumming is all about."
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.