First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"It troubles me that our worth is measured against what white people in power care about on a given day, week, month. The stories of my people are evergreen. I will write about them for a lifetime."
"I also love the way lists and repetitions can serve as a comfort. We can predict a repetition and that’s soothing, but we can also alter it to create something new, which, in my case, often produces a joy."
"Guys in prison are always saying, “I wish someone would write my life story. It would be a bestseller.” So I thought I’d start writing my life story…"
"I think that part of the problem is that a lot of black writers are … satisfied with being successful outside of what you’d call literary fiction. And if you take that satisfaction, you don’t get in the club. You have to write literary fiction to get in the club. And there aren’t that many black writers that they’ve allowed in the club to choose from…"
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.