Sharma : Did you have any poet, say like Zaver Chand Nenghani in Maharashtra?
Chavan : We had our own patriotic poets. Savarkar was one or them, who wrote patriotic songs. I do not straightaway remember the names. But that tradition of 1930 was kept throughtut in the 1932 and 1942 movements. Vasant Bapat and Kusumagraja of Nasik composed poems for the 1942 movement. I may mention that they are popular even now. We had our long tradition of Patriotic poets. But in 1930 prabhat pheri songs were composed by even local poets. Every town had its own poets who composed poems and made them popular in those areas. A young boy named Shankar Shahir Nikam, who beloged to my part popularised songs written by Madgulkar, who composed many songs, in rural colloquial language, which were very popular in the rural areas, at that time. In 1942, popular songs were composed by this famous poet Madgulkar who also belongs to that tradition of patriotic poets. He died very recently. His songs were very popular. I remember one, in that a peasant was trying to tell his wife the story of Swaraj.
Sharma : In some languages, different movements have been taken note of by novelists, for example, there is a novel on the 1942 movement in Sengali; there is one by Meghani on the 1920 movement; Prem chand had written on the 1930 movement. Some of them were participanes and also literary figures. what was the position in Maharashtra?
Chavan : Not basically on those themes. There are one or two novels on the backgoround of the movements, for example, Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar and Madkholkar have written political novels. In fact, adkholkar was one person who had introduced contemporary political novels on the background of Dr khare's controversy, for instance. so most of the important political figures in Madhya Pradesh politics, you can see in that novel. They were like that.
