Dr Narendra Dabholkar

Four months before rationalist leader-writer Dr Narendra Dabholkar was gunned down in Pune, he was interviewed in the SM Joshi Socialist Foundation hall on Singhad Road. This was no hurried byte given to a media outlet, but a planned 100 minute-long `public interview` on April 8, 2013, in which Dabholkar answered 25 precise questions that he had been repeatedly asked since he founded the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (Committee to Eradicate Superstition in Maharashtra) in 1989. Each question was devoted three and a half minutes and the interview, held amid a 500 plus audience, was shot without a retake. The chatty style of the interview, its sparkling logic laced with anecdotes, makes for a fresh impactful piece of communication even when Dabholkar is not accessible in person. Commemorating Dabholkar`s third death anniversary, the slim book named "Prashna Tumcha Uttar Dabholkaranche" (Your Question, Dabhaolkar`s Answer) does justice to Dabholkar`s spirit of inquiry and his group`s signature anthem: "Prashna Vichara Punha Punha Asech Ka An Tasech Ka; Shikane Kadhi Sampat Nahi, Hou Dya Lakh Chuka..." (Continue to ask questions; ask why this is so and why that is so? Continue Learning, Despite a Million Mistakes).