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April 10, 2026
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"We talk about purpose a lot, whether it be in the church or in academic institutions ... I had to step back and just say, ‘Who else?’"
"People at the N.I.H. would have overlooked Black women if I failed. Being the first in so many kinds of these spaces has so much pressure"
"I felt like there was no room for mistakes, which was difficult because science – mistakes are actually part of the beauty of it. Not necessarily tons of mistakes, but you learn a lot from things that don’t necessarily always go right with experiments. But in this case, we only had the bandwidth to learn from things that were going to go right. Otherwise, you lost time and people died."
"I would say that my role as a scientist is really about my passion and purpose for the world and for giving back to the world."
"If you can unwind and be true to who you are, it helps to reckon with things. My team is responding to the world’s most devastating global pandemic in the last hundred years. And so, there’s something to be said about knowing who you are."
"I felt like it was necessary to be seen and to not be a hidden figure so to speak."
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.