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April 10, 2026
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"A good sheep station ruined."
"Canberra: There's nothing to it! Canberra: Why wait for death? Canberra: Gateway to everywhere else!"
"Any journalist worth his salt doesn't think any good story can't be improved a bit. The Canberra press gallery, where I served most of my journalistic life, could prove the case. It might well be the quietest day of a peaceful recess, not a speck of news to be had anywhere; but next day's papers have to appear and columns have to be filled. The boys pass one another in the corridor with always the same lugubrious questions and answers. "Quiet, isn't it?" "Yes, dead." Later they gather at a convivial spot and lament the lack of events and stories. They will have a drink on that to let it seep in. They'll have another few snorts and gradually the ideas will begin to germinate. Next day, when there hasn't been a single politician within a coo-ee of Canberra, devouring readers will learn that "Informed opinion in the Canberra lobbies thinks ...", or "Those in a position to express an opinion believe ..." And so it goes on."
"I have planned a city not like any other city in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any governmental authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city, a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future."
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.