First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
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"Ye undertakers, tell us, 'Midst all the gorgeous figures you exhibit, Why is the principal conceal'd, for which You make this mighty stir?"
"There was a man bespake a thing, Which when the owner home did bring, He that made it did refuse it: And he that brought it would not use it, And he that hath it doth not know Whether he hath it yea or no."
"Why is the hearse with scutcheons blazon'd round, And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd? No; the dead know it not, nor profit gain; It only serves to prove the living vain."
"Diaulus, lately a doctor, is now an undertaker; what he does as an undertaker, he used to do also as a doctor."
"There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot; To the churchyard a pauper is going I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings— Rattle his bones over the stones, He's only a pauper whom nobody owns."
"The houses that he makes last till doomsday."
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.