Pramod146;s Parivar

English teacher Pramod Mahajan, karyavah organiser of the RSS8217;s youth wing and Ambejogai8217;s most effective orator, was among those marshalling resources. His own lecture: A history of political revolutions.

8216;8216;Pramod and Munde had an infectious enthusiasm and joy,8217;8217; says fellow detainee Dr Sharadrao Hebalkar, a full-time RSS pracharak in the early 1970s and later a History lecturer at Yogeshwari Mahavidyalaya, Ambejogai. 8216;8216;Ek Sanjeevani thi,8217;8217; he says, referring to the mythological life-giving herb, 8216;8216;that touched all who came in contact with them.8217;8217;

THAT description finds other takers too, even among those who knew Pramod Mahajan when he was just another new boy in town when father Venkatesh was posted as headmaster of the Zilla Parishad School. 8216;8216;After my English tuitions with his father,8217;8217; says M A Hamid 52, a ration shop owner and childhood schoolmate of 13-year-old Pramod Mahajan, 8216;8216;he8217;d play cricket with me.8217;8217; There were picnics too, 8216;8216;in the sitaphal custard apple seasons8217;8217; of the mid-1960s, when Pramod would insist on seeing the view from the hillside.

In his late teens while he graduated from Yogeshwari Mahavidyalaya, he would attend Ambejogai8217;s RSS shakhas against his father8217;s advice8212;8216;8216;in those days, parents fretted about finding a match for boys inviting the authorities8217; wrath by getting mixed up with the RSS,8217;8217; says childhood friend Madhukar Dhat 598212;and immediately caught the eye of senior pracharaks.

In 1969, there were seven RSS shakhas in town, with over 150 youth attending. So, when the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ABVP visited the town8217;s student politics for the first time, it was a natural progression. Soon, Mahajan came in touch with the ABVP8217;s Maharashtra stalwarts like Vishnu Deshpande and Yeshwantrao Kelkar, says Arun Shastri 59, a Hindi teacher at Kholeshwar Vidyalaya, Mahajan8217;s senior by a couple of years and now school principal.

8216;8216;It was just 20 years since Independence,8217;8217; says Shastri. 8216;8216;And our generation believed that what was to become of India lay in our hands.8217;8217; So, a student leader with charisma, a 8216;8216;humanitarian view8217;8217; on all things and an oratorial command that made other contestants at debates feel certain of defeat was a natural grameen leader. 8216;8216;At that time,8217;8217; Shastri continues, 8216;8216;we couldn8217;t know if he8217;d take up politics, but we new he would be a leader.8217;8217;

Around then, Mahajan8212;then tehsil secretary of the ABVP8212;and Gopinath Munde met in college, found they got along famously and formed what Munde calls on his personal website an 8216;8216;everlasting bond8217;8217;. But childhood friends lost touch briefly as Mahajan went to Pune for a diploma in journalism, rushing back after losing his father to a heart attack.

Mama Kshirsagar, then principal at Kholeshwar Vidyalaya and an acquaintance of his father, on his usual rounds of RSS karykartas8217; homes, found the Mahajans looking for employment for Pramod. From 1972 to 1974, Mahajan taught English at Kholeshwar Vidyalaya, earning a reputation as somebody who loved narrating stories, enjoyed challenges like teaching the slow learners and winning the best teacher prize often.

8216;8216;One thing he hated was bad handwriting,8217;8217; says Sharayu Hebalkar, still a teacher at the school and Sharadrao Hebalkar8217;s wife. 8216;8216;He himself can write equally well with either hand.8217;8217;

Mahajan rented four rooms in a decent area for his family. 8216;8216;His mother Prabhavati didn8217;t want to stay in their original rented home8212;it bore bad memories after her husband8217;s death,8217;8217; says Pratibha Mane, wife of Mahajan8217;s first landlord. 8216;8216;The family has stayed in touch, sending wedding invites without fail, visiting sometimes when any of them is in town.8217;8217; Chandu or Chandya, as Pravin Mahajan was known, was just nine years old then, she adds. That house is now a beauty parlour, run by the next occupants.

As mother Prabhavati coped with just his income and five children, Mahajan learnt some valuable lessons in inspiring faith in other struggling families. During his rounds asking people to send their boys to the shakhas, he8217;d ask only for khaali supaari, the plain red betelnut even the poorest homes could offer.

The Hebalkars8217; two-room home with a tin roof was then the meeting place for the functionaries. 8216;8216;We used to chat till 11 pm, sometimes watch a movie and feast on roasted kurmura puffed rice,8217;8217; remembers Sharayu.

Mahajan liked a taste of the prohibited too, sometimes insisting that Dhat procure 8216;Cool8217; cigarettes for a few drags.

The hardy bicycle was preferred to other transport and while Shastri remembers a ride to nextdoor Parli, a snack of fruits en route, many deshbhakti songs along the way and Jeetendra-starrer Caravan at the end, Dhat remembers a 100-km journey to Parbhani during the 32-day Marathwada Vikas Aandolan in 1970-71. 8216;8216;Our legs were hurting so much that on the way back, we hoisted our cycles atop a bus instead of riding back,8217;8217; he recounts, showing photographs of a just-married Mahajan and a cheerful Rekha at his home.

8216;8216;They fell in love during practice for a state-level drama competition,8217;8217; he says. Mahajan had the main role and the play came third at the final in Jalgaon.

In 1974, when Jaya Prakash Narayan launched his total revolution movement against Indira Gandhi, Mahajan got involved with the movement in Marathwada. Munde was then a third year law student, to fall in love with Mahajan8217;s sister Pradnya and declare his love publicly during an election campaign in 1978.

8216;8216;Jail was more a training camp and less a jail stint,8217;8217; says Shastri, also detained. 8216;8216;There were so many teachers and leaders there that people became linguists.8217;8217; Mahajan himself learnt Urdu from Ambejogai8217;s ABVP leader Yeshwantrao Kelkar and can till date sign his name in the complex script.

Back home, Mahajan8217;s wife Rekha delivered their son Rahul at her maternal home while her husband was in jail.

Once Emergency was revoked, nothing was the same for Mahajan, who climbed fast during the anti-Congress movement of the Janata Party, which led a shortlived government at the Centre in 1977. By 1978, he was secretary of the Maharashtra unit of the Janata Party, then the Maharashtra general secretary when the Bharatiya Janata Party was formed.

8216;8216;He didn8217;t have time to cultivate a mass base in Ambejogai, or anywhere else,8217;8217; say a Marathi journalist. 8216;8216;That8217;s why you won8217;t see any developmental works initiated by him for his hometown.8217;8217;

Also, although he was aligned with the RSS even at his very first job8212;in Pune in 1970-71, where he was sub-editor for the science pages of RSS mouthpiece Tarun Bharat8212;Ambejogai8217;s staunch RSS followers have reservations about his later political career. 8216;8216;At such a time as this,8217;8217; Shastri says at the start of the conversation, 8216;8216;there are only some kinds of things that one can say.8217;8217;

But Ambejogai knows that the biggest politician their town gave the country can still be approached in times of need. So, when the RSS needed office space in Ambejogai, it was Mahajan they went to.

In 1972, teachers from Kholeshwar School had purchased 3,000-sq ft plots to form a society named Keshav Nagar, after RSS leader Keshav Hegdewar. Mahajan invested in a Rs 500-plot too, but never constructed on it. Last year, he donated it to the Sangh, requesting only that two rooms be kept aside for a reference library for IAS aspirants named after his father.

8216;8216;Registration formalities were incomplete,8217;8217; says Prakash Tangli, a teacher and RSS functionary, 8216;8216;so he was to visit Ambejogai on May 20.8217;8217;

He8217;ll come soon, Ambejogai is hoping.

8226; Venkatesh Mahajan, an English teacher, came to Ambejogai in 1962-63, where he was posted as headmaster of the Zilla Parishad School.

8216;8216;It8217;s not true that they were poor,8217;8217; says principal of Kholeshwar Vidyalaya Arun Shastri. 8216;8216;In those days, a headmaster was revered as much as a tehsildar.8217;8217;

But the Mahajans were a simple family, Venkatesh and Prabhavati, their three sons and two daughters. Venkatesh Mahajan died of a heart attack in 1972.

8226; Pravin Mahajan 47
Married to Sarangi MahajanA graduate, he moved to Thane after his marriage. Nearly 12 years ago, Pramod helped him buy a 1,000-sq ft apartment in Thane8217;s Jinja Building. Has no other known assets apart from a little jewellery and a just-purchased Maruti Swift.

His family owes much to the success of the oldest Mahajan sibling, who took it upon himself to raise two younger brothers and two sisters after the death of his father when he was in Pune.

His brother8217;s clout helped him get his first major project8212;with a big iron company in the Konkan region 8212; during which he also got in touch with Bal Thackeray, who was building a home for senior citizens there. He later opted to work behind the scenes during the Sena-BJP regime, but a rift grew between him and Pramod with the defeat of the NDA government at the Centre. Pravin now dabbles in Thane8217;s real estate alongside his job at a telecom company, where he was very irregular.

He tried a tyre business and a construction venture, neither of which took off. The most reclusive and youngest of the Mahajan siblings, he rarely mingled with old acquaintances in Ambejogai.

8226; Pratima 55

Barried to Ashok Bhatambrekar

This couple still lives in Beed district, where Pratima is a teacher in a government school in Parli. Husband Ashok was a district education officer, recently retired. Son Aniruddh, who runs a stable sugar business in Marathwada8217;s sugar belt, was recently married to a girl from Ambejogai. Daughter Shilpa is an engineer.

Pradnya 45
Married to Gopinath Munde

She lives in Mumbai with BJP leader Munde and their three daughters8212;Pankaja, Yashasri and Preetam. Pankaja is married while the other two are studying. All three were in the Purna Building apartment in Worli when Rekha Mahajan called for Munde last Saturday morning.

8226; Prakash Mahajan 50
Married to Nayna Mahajan

Prakash is a contractor in Aurangabad, running a fairly successful business along with son Aakash. He used to run a restaurant named Neelam in Ambejogai for several years before moving to Aurangabad. Daughter Sapna is married.