Today, being a two year death anniversary of Balasaheb Thackrey. I planned to write something about him.
As a kid, I grew up in the lane of Shiv Sena Bhavan, which is located in Dadar central Mumbai. So the Shiv Sena and its politics are always talk of dining table.
It was 1996. So here I was a kid 11 year old, playing cricket in on a boring Sunday afternoon.
Someone said " Balasaheb yetat".
I being a very naive kid, expecting a superstar and having heard his name on TV and Newspapers.Me and two friends walked down the lane. A white Ambassador came through with a man less than 5.5 in height and much slimmer than what I was in 96. He was barely seen through the window. (Tinted black glass were not banned yet). But the moment he got down people approached him as if he was a superstar Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan.
As a kid, I grew up in the lane of Shiv Sena Bhavan, which is located in Dadar central Mumbai. So the Shiv Sena and its politics are always talk of dining table.
It was 1996. So here I was a kid 11 year old, playing cricket in on a boring Sunday afternoon.
Someone said " Balasaheb yetat".
I being a very naive kid, expecting a superstar and having heard his name on TV and Newspapers.Me and two friends walked down the lane. A white Ambassador came through with a man less than 5.5 in height and much slimmer than what I was in 96. He was barely seen through the window. (Tinted black glass were not banned yet). But the moment he got down people approached him as if he was a superstar Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan.
Even in that rush, he looked at me and my friends through his sharp but drowsy eyes and smiled. He walked towards us & put his hand on my head and smiled. He smiled with a fatherly Aashirwad face. That memory of that gesture remained with me for years and years.
Years later, when his security was tightened and people were not allowed him. His face would be seen either on television or the Dussehra rally. I boosted a lot about this encounter with that great man.
2012, he breathed his last and that is the only memory I have of him.
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