Bal Gangadhar Tilak is considered as pioneer of India’s independence movement. He was the first one to reach out to people at the grass root level, awakening among them the need for freedom movement. His famous words ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it’ are still fresh in the memory of Indians. To commemorate his 159th birth anniversary scheduled on 1st August, , Lokmanya Seva Sangh Vile Parle, along with C M Joshi Dilasaa Kendra, had designed a programme ,which comprised of discussions with the people associated with recently released Marathi film ‘Lokmanya Ek Yugpurush’.

Pradeep Bhide and Avadhoot Paralkar held the reins of the discussion, with Subodh Bhave (who has played the role of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the film), Kaustubh Savarkar (writer of the film ), took part in the discussion. Answering a question, about how difficult it was to select a subject of Lokmanya, Subodh Bhave replied, that it was a difficult decision, as he was not prepared to play Tilak, initially. “In fact, my knowledge about Tilak was as limited as everyone around. But, one day, my actor friend Sharad Ponkshe, gifted me a book on Lokmanya. It was so fascinating, that I completed it start to finish and my whole perspective changed. Even otherwise, I wanted to do something about the subject and coincidentally Om Raut offered me this role. And after his detailed narration, made me rethink about my reluctance, as he was very sure of, what he was getting into.” said Subodh.

When asked about insertions and deletions of incidents from Tilak’s life in the film, Kaustubh Savarkar also admitted about his limited knowledge on this subject. “We wanted to present Tilak’s thoughts, through this film and did not want it to be a biopic. Again, we incorporated a dialect, which could appeal to all and settled for an amalgamation of language pattern of that era and today’s time.” he reminisced. Incidentally Kaustubh’s father, veteran actor Jayant Savarkar, was also present at the event. Pradeep Bhide too, shared his views on Tilak and narrated couple of incidents which brought tears to his eyes. A lady in audience shared an incident from Tilak’s life and she happened to be Lokmanya’s fifth generation grand-daughter.

Subodh Bhave finally concluded, “Tilak’s larger than life, his zeal to fight Britishers, his intellect and self-belief and nationalistic views right from his younger days , is remarkable. He can easily be termed as ‘India’s first Dabang’.”