‘When the lotus bloomed, he was there to make sure it worked’

The party’s prized orator — he always carried a memory pad to jot notes and nurtured his overworked voice with a nightcap of hot milk and turmeric — will be missed in his inner circle for long, energetic conversations and not just in politics.

On Wednesday, a ‘‘stunned’’ Nitin Desai, award-winning Bollywood set director of Devdas, watched the news and recalled intense hours spent planning the BJP’s grandest public event in December that had a flamboyance typical to technomaven Mahajan.

Four months ago, a giant lotus bloomed at Shivaji Park to reveal the top BJP leadership on stage to celebrate the party’s 25 years — and few know that Mahajan had rehearsed every hi-tech scene.

‘‘Pramod would come to my Karjat studio and ask many questions to understand how the lotus would work, from hydraulics to safety mechanism,’’ says Desai. Mahajan insisted that he wanted to stand in the middle of the lotus to rehearse, he remembers wistfully. ‘‘Then he went to check the view from the audience section, and the media section. He was so thorough.’’

Desai remembers Mahajan would share ideas on the social angle of films and urge him to chase the latest technology for his studio. When he gave Mahajan a computational 3D walk-through of the set, he was so excited he watched it over and over again and showed it off to party colleagues.

The workaholic Mahajan, obsessed with the idea of pulling off a perfect show, would turn up to review progress at 7 am or even 1.30 am at Shivaji Park, or Bandra where the party’s temporary Rajat Jayanti Nagar housed party workers.

‘‘I learnt a lot from Mahajan,’’ says Desai. ‘‘He taught me that one should be 100 per cent sure what one’s trying to do, and then achieve 200 per cent.’’

BJP leader Ram Naik, who would visit Mahajan when he was jailed in Nashik during the Emergency, remembers he was ‘‘extraordinarily efficient’’ long before he became the party’s chief poll strategist. ‘‘We had last spoken in detail about Assam elections, about two months ago,’’ says Naik.

Waiting at the BJP office for Mahajan’s body to be brought in, Naik remembers 25 years ago when Mahajan helped organise the BJP’s first convention in Mumbai. ‘‘He was in charge of media activities and arrangements for delegates from other states,’’ Naik recalls.

At the silver jubilee rally as the mechanics worked out fine, Mahajan’s opening line was simple: ‘‘25 years ago feels like yesterday’’.