Different Strokes

At every event that Amay Pangarkar hosted as an anchor,he always wanted to go up to the chief guests and ask them questions about their profession and their life in general. He always wanted to know what was behind the smiles caught on celluloid when he saw pictures of celebrities in magazines or newspapers. When he read their interviews,he wanted to know more than what their favourite movie or sport was. This curious young man – a first year Engineering student at Pune Vidhyarthi Griha’s College of Engineering and Technology – decided to write a book so he could answer his own queries as well as those of a million others who were curious about the same things. “Society is a fabric which is woven by many threads of different colours. Although there is an abundance of people who have gained success and fame in society for their work,there are few who stand out because of their tireless contribution to society and serve as role models for the youth. I have tried my best to compile the thoughts and expressions of such personalities in my project as an author,” says Pangarkar,author of ‘Collage’,a book that contains interviews with 29 eminent personalities.

A year and a half back,Pangarkar shortlisted 29 names representing different professions and industries in society and tried his best to to approach them for a hearty tete-e-tete. The first person he could source form the list was Babasaheb Purandare,a 93-year-old historian. “Babasaheb Purandare was the grandfather of one of my friends. So I spoke to him informally when I went to his residence one day,and I was really surprised about how little I knew about history and the work that historians do. He told me the significance of Geography in his field of work,while I always thought that Geography and History were two completely independent and different subjects,” says Pangarkar.

The personalities he interviewed for his book include writer and poet Sandeep Khare,painter Milind Mulick,magician Jitendra Raghuvir,international politics consultant Sundeep Waslekar,economist Achyut Godbole,Marathi film director Umesh Kukarni,social worker Prakash Amte,dancer Shama Bhate,IT personnel Dipak Shikarpur,model Priyanka Misal,chef Nilesh Limaye,musician Ustad Taufiq Qureshi and more.

“ Coming from a middle-class background,I never knew what the life of a historian,or a music maestro,or a model would be like; what were their thoughts on their profession,what are the misconceptions of their industry. I wanted to delve deeper into the society that was made up of so many different stratas,” says Pangarkar,a member of Hridgandha,which is a group of sixty art,music,poetry and literature enthusiasts who have got together to organise stage shows and also have their own reording studio. Hridgandha is now venturing in book publishing with Pangarkar’s book.