On inauguration anniversary of Rock Memorial: 02nd Sept 1970 

How many of you have seen or heard about Vivekananda rock memorial at kanyakumari and how many of you know about Eknathji Ranade???
Probably very few, Eknathji was secretary of RSS when he was relieved of his responsibilities to construct a memorial for this great son of motherland (swami vivekananda). The story of construction is as magnificent as the memorial.
He was not interested in just raising money from a few individuals for this great endeavour,so he formed district level committees and collected 1 Re each from 1 crore Indians.
When the progress started,Christians objected to the project stating it was St Xaviers rock. The government as usual capitulated and declared an inquiry which came out unequivocally in favour of memorial. In the meantime Eknathji submitted a signed memorandum from more than 350 MPs to Shastriji who was pleasantly surprised and took up the matter with Nehru who had to relent.
When the pace picked up,anti Hindi or north agitation picked up and it was demanded that instead of vivekananda (north Indian) ,thiruvalluvar's memorial would be more apt. But Eknathji was not someone to relent,he convinced Karunanidhi, the then chief minister to approve the memorial.
Finally after 7-8 years of effort on this day in 1970,the memorial was a reality.

On punyatithi of Lokmanya Tilak : 1st August

 

The other day when I was talking to a group of kids,I asked them about Tilak,and they looked me with a question mark. I was amazed....
Anyways who was this man a social reformer,educationist,journalist,philosopher,politician,patriot or a ma...thematician or all rolled into one.
Britishers rightly called him "father of Indian discontent" and why would'nt they. Can you imagine a journalist who could ask in editorial "has the government lost it's head" or openly give lectures on Shivaji's killing of afzal khan which reminded people of the foreign rule. He had very practical notions about fight against injustice so even being non violent he was inspiration behind armed revolutionaries like Chapekar brothers and Savarkar.
When sentenced to rigorous imprisonment in Mandalay he produced a master treatise on Gita called "Gita rahsya".Let us remember him on his 93rd death anniversary and ask for an iota of his courage and dedication for motherland......