A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

deeply concerned about the neglected, the
deprived, the exploited and the miserable.
In Tagore Park there were many meeting
places where Baba would turn up suddenly.
Sometimes at Karan Singh Chauhan’s , or
Sudhish Pachauri’s or Mukesh Garg’s place.
Once, when I and Shashi were at Mukesh
bhaiya’s place, Baba arrived. Mukesh had
gone to Shradhanand College to take classes.
He asked us, what we had cooked. We
had taken our meal, but we felt that Baba
was hungry, so we decided to cook. We
made parathas. This was the only talent
we had brought with us from our village.
We knew Baba could not control hunger
and must have food served immediately
when he was hungry. He was a connoisseur
of food but not a gourmand. Rather he
was abstemious in his food habits. We
got busy in preparing the meal. LPG was
a rarity in those days, but it was available
for us. When Shashi started peeling the
potatoes Baba told her to cook it unpeeled,
because it has many medicinal properties.
We were astonished at Baba’s knowledge
of Sanskrit, as he had never revealed that
he was a great Sanskrit scholar. He was
a linguist. Besides Sanskrit he had studied
other languages like- Oriya, Bengali,
Guajrati, and Marathi. He never made a
display of his learning; rather he was full
of humility while speaking about himself.
“I am no exception, everyone knows
a little. You have come to do M.A., you
will also study. I have done nothing. I
keep wandering here and there. My name
is Yatri.”
He told us to put black rock salt in
the potato curry we had cooked. When
we said that there wasn’t any, he enumerated
the various qualities of black rock
salt. We were astonished at his knowledge.
After the meal, he told us that he was
very hungry, that is why he had told
us not to peel the potatoes. The fact was
that he liked peeled potatoes. But one
can’t do anything about hunger. It must
be satiated. He said that the youngsters
are always talking of revolution, but they
don’t know that our stomach is the greatest
revolutionary. Many types of leftists live
here. Some are Vaampanthi and some are
Vaamdhandhi.
He found a very attentive audience
in us. We were ignorant and lacked wisdom.
He was venting himself out in front of
us, because somebody had found fault
with his leftism which hurt him. He went
on to say that there were very few people
who were true leftists. Most of them are
leftist only in name. Some adopt it as
a profession. Then, confiding in us, he
told us not to reveal his views to Sudhish
and Karan. They would become violent.
You just tell them that Baba made the
curry, and we all had it with great relish.
Then he left us. He could never sit in
one place for a long time. He kept moving.
I am reminded of another incident which
I would like to share with my readers.
Kakaji was a frequent visitor to Mukesh
bhaiya’s house. Once when kakaji had come
126 :: January-March 2012