Ganpati Bal Yadav cycled off into the sunset last week. The freedom fighter and underground courier for revolutionaries had completed his century and was batting on 101 when, after a brief illness, the man who did anywhere between 5-20 kilometres a day on his ancient bicycle right to his last months, peddled off to that great velodrome in the sky.
The day we met him in 2018 – he was then 97 – he had cycled close to 30 kilometres, in search of us. ‘Us’ being the PARI team that was late, but desperate to get him to share his riveting story with us. That it was mid-May, that he had been on the road for hours, and that his bicycle looked a museum piece seemed not to bother him. That man has gone, but his story remains: Ganpati Yadav’s gripping life cycle .
Ganpati Bal Yadav, born in 1920, was a freedom fighter in the ranks of the Toofan Sena (Whirlwind Army), the armed wing of the prati sarkar or provisional, underground government of Satara that rose in arms and declared independence from British rule in 1943. He participated in their actions against the British Raj. ‘Ganpa Dada’ was also part of that dream revolutionary team that pulled off the great train robbery at Shenoli in Satara district on June 1943 led by G. D. Bapu Lad and ‘Captain Bhau’.
Mostly, for years, as he told us: “I delivered food to our leaders (hiding in the forest). I would go to meet them at night. There would be 10-20 people with the leader.”
— source ruralindiaonline.org | P. Sainath | Apr 22, 2021