Veer Savarkar

On May 28^th, 1965 a grandfather took one little six year old girl sitting on her grandpa’s shoulder and watched one of the finest freedom loving (Swatantrya), bravest(Veer) man of the 21^st century slowing fading away!
On May 28^th, 1883 a freedom fighter, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was born in Nasik, a small city in the state of Maharashtra, India. As with most Indian children, Vinayak and his brother Ganesh were raised with stories of Ram and Sita from the great epic poem Ramayan, Radha, Krishna and Rukmini from another epic poem Mahabharat as well as Shivaji Bhosle, a more recent freedom fighter. From these stories Vinayak learned of honor, duty, and everyone’s birthright to be free as well as the need to fight for the freedom if necessary. Their childhood was spent happily organizing Vanersena (monkey brigade) following the example of Ram and hiking through the mountains of Nasik to rescue Sita, the wife of Shree Ram who was kidnapped by Ravana, the King of Sri Lanka.
In high school he imbibed the principals of Shivaji and Tilak, two major forces in his life who recognized the need for unity among the Indian people. Shivaji, at the age of fifteen, took an oath to fight for freedom and reclaimed forts from the Moghul Emperors and lit the torch for freedom in every Maharashtrian’s soul. Later Tilak started a newspaper, Kesari, giving voice to freedom lovers and organized huge public festival and processions for Lord Ganesh uniting the people of Maharashtra while instilling, invoking and demanding the right to free assembly under the British rule.