By Prof S B Shrichandan Singh :
“Live as if you are to die tomorrow. Learn as if you are to live for ever.” 
-- M K Gandhi    

It is not easy for one to encapsulate the public life of some one such as Adv. Chandrakant J Thakar, spanning over four and half decades. It is difficult too, for anybody, to document the activities and achievements of a multipotentialite personality of him. It is certainly very hard to curate this rare individual’s sense of philanthropy and excellence, faith and generosity, life and living who simply wanted the humanity to be ridden of all unpleasant and unwanted things. Yet, the onus is on us to look over and appreciate such a soul of whom, we may say that Nagpur is rendered poorer by his passing away on Thursday, the 24th October. Memories are flitting and generating as well, nonetheless they demand a stable response from a conscious mind expecting steady recollection. Hence, reminiscences, bring before me that tall, handsome, stylish, perfectly fluent English speaking lawyer, in his early 40s - Adv. Chandrakant J Thakar. Thence, as an executive member of the then Shri Nagpur Gujrati Kelwani Mandal (Now Shri Nagpur Gujrati Mandal), he started his public life in ‘80s. Thakar Sahab’s passion and perseverance for doing and achieving the best, has been the USP of his individuality. Being a strict follower of a regular time-table, punctuality was in his bones. Never we have seen him late for meetings and other programmes held at college.

 

During the time of my college teachership, I have watched both him and the institution growing and transforming together for the better. Somewhere, perhaps in his subconscious mind, the legacy of his illustrious father late Adv. J M Thakar, a leading tax practitioner, was cheering him up for doing benevolence. Being a compulsive reader and an aggressive learner, Adv. Thakar would ask others around him, and specifically the teachers, to tread the path. Adv. Thakar would readily reckon with any idea that might amplify the academic excellence and be the cause for learning more, on part of the faculties, and earn name for the institution.

 

It was in 2006, he agreed with me to organise a state level conference on Harold Pinter and asked me to shoulder the responsibilities as the Organising Secretary. Again, when I suggested Dr. M G Chandekar, the former principal, to hold the Book and Literature Festival in 2013, upon knowing it Adv. Thakar became extremely delighted and promised all his support to the event and to me, the Organisation Secretary again. Lessons for me, then, I realised how tough it was to work with him and pleasure to learn from him besides humbling to be appreciated by him. The best tribute to him lies in his eponymous title “Bhisma Pitamah” as respectfully and affectionately we all have uttered for him. To sum up, Swami Vivekananda’s words will justify his departure from this mortal world. “Those who live for others are the ones who truly live, and that the rest are more dead than alive.” (The writer teaches at P G Department of Gandhian Thought and Linguistics, RTM Nagpur University, and is former Vice-Principal, VMV College, Nagpur.)