LATE MADHUP PANDE JI

Late MADHUP PANDE,
    I got the sad message on my whatsapp that Professor, An Anchor, Guru of Masses and a well known poet “MADHUP PANDE ” is dead today in the morning.  He was a professor in Nagpur G.S.College.

     I know Madhup ji as a poet. I was a student of Nagpur University in M.A (Hindi Literature), because of him whereas  my mother tongue was Marathi.

      In the seventies in my childhood, Hindi was a language usually spoken by Muslims people and the boys with whom I used to play together without the knowledge of our parents. It was Urdu mixed-up language then. Hindi came to Nagpur by migration of workers from Madhya Pradesh and mostly from Chhattisgarh. Chhattisgarhi migrated mostly from small mazdoors, here and there in Nagpur. Men used to ride Cycle rickshaws and their women at Bhaji markets, as I saw them working on. Women were called HAREWALI and used to carry vegetables in bulk up to parked vehicles.

       So was the RANI LAXMI CHAWK in Nagpur which then became JHANSI RANI CHAWK. If you ask Rani Laxmi Square, the rickshaw wala will totally say “NO” to you. Itwari, Panchpawali, Gandhibgh, and Sitabuldi were the boundaries of Nagpur and Somalwada, Chichbuwan, Bajaj Nagar, Shankar Nagar were the outskirts of  Nagpur.

       There was a G.S.College, strict Principal named as Toki  known for his raging. Madhup Pande, a Hindi lecturer, was known for his  MRUDHU BHASHA, in and among all the teachers of G.S.College. In 1972, when Hislop College came into picture for mass coping. No Hislopins was allowed in any other college, was a slogan in Nagpur. In the regime of Principal, Dr. Bhagat, Hislop college got a bad name and fame, where once foreigners used to get admissions if percentages are good enough to stand in merit ques…

      But college aspirants got admissions in G.S. College if they go for Hindi language. Or at least they should have it as one subject, I am told. It was a risky and motherly treatment of Madhup Pande ji to the needy aspirant boys. It was then only one commerce college.

     Madhup Pande, I know, from More Bhavan, a place where Pande ji used to come. I saw him along with Parsai ji, the administrator of More Bhavan Estate including its Library.  His poem title “MAA ” is dear to me even today. He rightly composed “MAA, he seys, MAA MERA TUTALAPAN TU NA HOTI TO KAUN BACHPAN ME, MAA SUNATA MUZE.”  Madhup jee, I heard you reciting  “MAA” poem in the eighties at Deshpande Hall, Nagpur, and at 3.00 a.m in the morning Nagpuri cold where AC was still on.  I came out of my sleep in its first panti, when I heard you reciting the poem on MAA.

     I have got a Xerox copy of Book “MAA”. It is hidden somewhere in my almirah. The original one I gave to one Nashik lady.  I could not get an opportunity to listen to it again after I heard you in Deshpande Hall in 1980. Now it is a property of an AKASHWANI, you told me. You are no more, but even today your book is with me … it will be in this world forever for the sons … of our motherland,  a GAN on Maa, the words to worship her.