Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/26

 Belgaum, his former school teacher sitting in the audience was astonished by his oratory skills. Because of the transferable job of his father, Sharad had to study in different cities including Satara, Belgaum, Nashik and Mumbai. Remembering his early childhood in Satara, Joshi had said, ‘As a child I suffered from pleurisy, a kind of a lung infection. Perhaps as a result of that I used to feel claustrophobic in a closed room. I used to feel much better when I went to the mountain top. In Satara, beyond the Ajinkyatara fort, there were many mountains. I remember going there, sitting on the shoulder of my father or our servant. It offered panoramic view of the valley which I loved. In later years mountaineering became my hobby and perhaps the root of that might be in my early physical deficiency.’ During the heady days of the Quit India movement, the Joshi family lived in Nashik. Sharad was hardly seven or eight years of age but somehow did not carry any inspiring memories of the freedom movement. He once said, ‘Being in a government job it was not possible for my father or my family to be a part of the freedom struggle in any way. Moreover, though Gandhiji advocated non-violence, the struggle was not non-violent. My father then worked in the Deolali post office. Some men participating in the struggle had burnt a letter box. Somehow father managed to open it and brought home the half-burnt letters. All of us at home sorted them out and delivered them to the respective post offices. Many of those letters could have been very important. Even in those early days I realized that the movement which was regarded as non-violent had this other side as well.’ In an article written many years later titled ‘Mystery of 1942’ (Shetkari Sanghatak, 21 November 1993) Joshi had referred to these Nashik days and mentioned how several acts of violence like burning post offices, cutting telecommunication (overhead) Early Years

Q

25