Babasaheb Purandare (29 July 1922 – 15 November 2021) was a famous historian who was known for his writing and leadership. Purandare has directed, a well-known theatrical play, Janata Raja. The play became famous not only in Maharashtra, but in some other states of India as well.
Childhood of Babasaheb Purandare
From the beginning of his childhood, he was fond of travel, meeting people and visit the historical places in Maharashtra. He was born in Pune, Saswaad, Maharashtra to a well established, Brahmin family. The family of Purandare was in the field of art and social service. He married to wife Nirmala who she was a social activist and his multi-talented daughter, Madhuri Purandare, is an author, singer, and painter.
Babasaheb Purandare’ interest
Babasaheb had a kin interest in history since he was very young. He used to visit forts, ancient temples with his father or grandparents and ask their unanswered questions them about the history of the place. Purandare had abundance of urge for writing for the great king Shivaji Maharaj.
A Maratha king of the 17th century who established the Maratha Empire. Hence, his writing got noticed and since then, he was called as Shivshahir Babasaheb Purandare (Bard of Shivaji) he wrote many notable works includes, Kesari, Thinagya, Raja Shiv-Chhatrapati etc.
Babasaheb Purandare in his one of the Interviews
In one of the interviews, he said that while his research in history about Raje (Shivaji Bhosale) he found many fake stories, people aggravated about the history of the king Shivaji which had no sense in his research. In one of the interviews, he narrated a story of the queen of England and his post-card. He explained that how he learned from a small mistake “how to give respect” to a nation, its people and learned a way to value it.
A story in London when Babasaheb Purandare was traveling
While he was staying in London, he wanted to send a letter to his family, so he went to a post office, already late. He quickly asked a ticket to a lady at the ticket counter. He could quickly post it on the letter and submit to them. It was a time of clearance of the letterbox.
As soon as the ticket landed into this hand, he pulled his tongue out and put enough of the saliva on the ticket and stuck on the letter in hurry. Thus, he handed it to the lady. Upon a positive node from the next person, Babasaheb Purandare turned back and started to leave.
Hello Mr!, Baba heard before he could take his third step. He returned to the counter and said what happened? The voice he heard was not familiar in tone. She handed the letter back to Babasaheb, “correct it”. He looked up into her eyes and said, I paid all the amount, and it does not matter that much if the ticket is upside-down. … and what if I placed the letter into the letter-box? Nobody could have noticed it.
Babasaheb Purandare in 2004
“Yeah, I can see that, whatever you are saying all is fine, but I cannot accept disrespect of my queen.”
Babasaheb Purandare said that it was the Queen of London on the ticket, which he had placed upside down. The spit was still there, he put his thumb and turned, and then the head of the queen was back to her place.
From the story he narrated, he learned how she was conscientious about her culture, people, values, and the respect for their nation. This incident taught him as well as us a valuable lesson. Thus, learning from every person, incidence, or things teach us something vital. The one who teaches us is our leader. We should never ignore small things, from these things that we get educated in our day-to-day lives.
