In the upcoming book, An Extraordinary Life: A biography of Manohar Parrikar, by Sadguru Patil and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, Parrikar’s ascent to power, and life has been documented in vivid details.The past two decades has seen the country take great interest in the political exploits of Manohar Parrikar and the way he led his party to victory. Right up from the time he was a MLA in the Opposition to his rise as defense minister, this book written by Sadguru Patil and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar covers the life of an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life.
Sadguru Patil has been a full time journalist for the last 23 years. He worked for 3 different Marathi newspapers as a political journalist. He was a chief Reporter of daily Gomantak for 8 years. Presently he is the Bureau chief of the Lokmat, Goa.
He has also written and published a Marathi biography of Parrikar in May 2019 which was limited to only Marathi readers in Goa and Maharashtra.
His association with the late Chief Minister goes back to 1994. “Since 1996 I have been covering Parrikar. While working as journalist, I have seen him as the MLA of Panaji, leader of opposition, a fiery BJP leader, CM and Defense minister of India. I interviewed him more than 20 times. Sometimes I travelled with him in his car within Goa. For news purpose, I covered business of all assembly sessions from 1997 till date and Parrikar was at the centre of majority of sessions, which I covered through my writings extensively” he says.
In order to take the life of late Manohar Parrikar to readers across India and the globe, Sadguru and his co-author Mayabhushan Nagvekar, came together to write Parrikar’s biography after his death, and the manuscript was accepted by Penguin Publishing house. Speaking on late Parrikar, Sadguru says, “After Dayanand Bandodkar, the first Chief Minister of Goa, Parrikar was the next most popular Chief Minister in Goa as well as India. He was the founder of modern Goa and his contribution in this aspect has been immense. His life is full of incidences which can inspire the new generation as these very characteristics are what prompted us to write a book on him:.
Sadguru then touches upon the contents of the book. “The book highlights his student life in Goa and in IIT, Mumbai. It also speaks about his childhood days, his family life, his personal life, full political career and his contribution to the RSS in Goa. The book also mentions his food habits, his working style and small snippets about his life. The famous surgical strike during his tenure as the Defense Minister is mentioned as well. . The many political adjustments which Parrikar was forced to make while playing the game of politics, also makes an appearance in the book”.
In order to put the book together, Sadguru got his information from different sources, some of them being Parrikar’s sisters, his sons, his brothers, his IIT colleagues, RSS functionaries like Ratnakar Lele, MR Velingkar, his childhood friend Sanjay Walawalkar, BJP leaders in Goa, and workers in the political field. His most trusted friend the Ex Attorney General of Goa, Atmaram Nadkarni, Dr Shekhar Salkar and his LIC agent Pradip Joshi, were a big source of information.
Sadguru and his co-author Mayabhushan did research for six months and spoke to hundreds of people. But due to the Coronavirus and the sudden lockdown imposed in India, it was not possible to release the book in April, as originally planned.
Sadguru speaks on his co-author, Mayabhushan Nagvekar. “Mayabhushan is a senior journalist with vast experience in journalism and his command over the English language is excellent. He has worked for 3 English dailies in Goa. He has also covered politics extensively and knew Parrikar for the past 21 years. Mayabhushan is presently working as the Goan correspondent of the Indo Asian news service.”
Sadguru states that the book will be released in the 1st week of July and will be digitally launched by Penguin Random House from Mumbai. The Oxford book store, Crossword book Store in Mumbai, will be doing a Facebook live session and currently there are a lot of pre booking of the book on Flipkart.
Mayabhushan Nagvekar is a senior journalist and his by lines have appeared in Tehelka, Hindustan Times, The Asian Age, Associated Press, BBC, Firstpost, The Guardian, Daily Pioneer, Deccan Herald, Himal, Scroll, etc, over the last 20-odd years.
Currently, he wirtes for a newswire service from Goa. He speaks about the book that he has co-authored with Sadguru Patil. “It was a biography which was waiting to be written. I was not willing to wait. The book spells out interesting and significant facets of the life of Goa’s tallest politician ever. Tallest in terms of tangible achievement in one’s political career, Parrikar served as the Defence Minister of India. No other Goan politician could even make it to the Union cabinet as full-fledged minister. The book begins with the last year of Parrikar’s life, leading to his death and then in subsequent chapters follows his life chronologically.”
His sources of information were Parrikar’s family, friends, foes, bureaucrats, party colleagues, people who knew him as a boss, etc.
Mayabhushan speaks highly of his co-author Sadguru Patil. “As co-authors, we had our roles worked out. Sadguru has done an absolutely fabulous — even though it was backbreaking — job at collecting the exhaustive data for the book. Most information related to Parrikar and the circumstances which played out around him was collected by Sadguru through detailed interviews. We would meet regularly to work out and finalise a framework, after which my chore, the writing, began.”
To conclude Mayabhushan states that the release date has been repeatedly pushed due to the vagaries dictated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the book is now scheduled for release on July 6.
The book is available for pre-order on various e-commerce websites.
