First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"But just below appearances in Karachi, below what was easily graspable, was the faith, and the fever of the faith, which took many forms, and nearly always gave a phantasmagoric quality to an encounter."
"Karachi at its worst is a Karachi unconcerned with people who exist outside the storyteller’s circle, a Karachi oblivious to people and places who aren’t familiar enough for nicknames. What I’ve sometimes mistaken for intimacy is really just exclusion. But Karachi is always dual. Houses are alleys; car thieves are the people to help you when your car won’t start; pollution simultaneously chokes you and makes you gasp at the beauty of unnatural sunsets; a violent, fractured place dismissive of everyone outside its boundaries is vibrant, embracing, accepting of outsiders; and, yes, selfishness is the consequence of love."
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.