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April 10, 2026
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"Anyone who sees Matera cannot help but be awe-struck, so expressive and touching is its sorrowful beauty."
"Archaeologically the most interesting town in Italy."
"Houses 10, one above another like seats in a theatre, built down the sides of an oval hole; more men cannot stand on a mountain than on the under plain. Dined in a garden, offered by a farrier of the town as we were looking for a tree in the suburbs ; the man very civil and well behaved, which is the general character."
"I wanted to come to this town for 40 years: it's wonderful. There is a wonderful view from my hotel room that surprised and moved me."
"Matera is like a giant beehive–solid looking on the outside, but actually made up almost entirely of tunnels, passageways, chambers and chambers atop chambers [...] still very much alive, gaunt and barren, and strangely beautiful, had stood for millennia and may stand for millennia to come."
"Some parts of the city are two thousand years old and it looks very much like what ancient Judea must have looked like. The architecture of the city, its rocks and the surrounding landscape are all excellent backdrops. The first time I saw Matera, I went crazy, because it was simply perfect."
"Yes, it is true that King David was a flop, but I’d do it all over again, because it gave me the opportunity to discover a remarkable city, Matera, which I would never have otherwise got to know."
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.