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It was in the early eighties that Shri Bhaskar Rao Kalambi, the then Pranta Pracharak of Kerala, who had been instrumental in making the RSS, a formidable force in that province, got an heart-attack and had to undergo a bypass surgery in Bombay. After his recovery Shri Balasaheb Deoras went to Bombay to felicitate, in a small private function, Dr Bhattacharya, who had ably performed the operation. Dr Bhattacharya said that he had only done his duty, then why this felicitation? Balasaheb answered, "Because you have given us back our worker." Dr Bhattacharya was immensely moved and remarked "it is really heartening to see that the head of a mighty organisation should evince such a keen concern for his worker."
Again in 1993, there was a bomb-blast in the provincial headquarters of RSS at Madras, Tamil Nadu, in which 11 persons lost their lives. Balasaheb decided to visit Madras in spite of his failing health. Because of his incapacitating illness he had to be taken around in a wheel- chair. The air hostess, seeing his condition, enquired whether he was going to Madras to be treated in the famous Apollo Hospital? Balasaheb replied in the negative and said, "You might have read about the bomb- biast in the RSS office at Madras in which 11 of our swayamsevaks and sympathisers have lost their lives. I, being the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, am dutybound to console the bereaved families." The air-hostess was so overwhelmed that she inadvertently bent forward to touch his feet.
It was this concern for the swayamsevaks that had endeared Shri Balasaheb Deoras to thousands and thousands of workers all over the country. This trait had been a part of his personality which was evident even when he was a teenager and was admitted to the Kush Pathak of Dr Hedgewar. As a Mukhyashikshak of his Shakha he with other swayamsevaks had nursed back to health a poor swayamsevak by attending on him by turns continuously for a week and raising a small fund for his medicines.
Author By K S Sudarshan
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