My brief encounter with Pramod Mahajan

Another icon has whiffed away in the air.

Pramod Mahajan - perhaps one of the only guys in BJP with whom the younger generation as well as the older one could connect to.

Pramod Mahajan- India Inc.'s poster boy, the man who revolutionised IT & telecom sector.

Pramod Mahajan - an outstanding orator & a skilled 'thinking' politician.

Pramod Mahajan - undoubtedly the only candidate in BJP who had full potential to becoming a Prime Minister some day.

I think the 'young' politicians of India who have created impact by the way they have functioned are really cursed ones. Rajiv Gandhi, Madahav Rao Scindhia, Rajesh Pilot...and now Pramod Mahajan.

I had the priviledge of meeting Pramod during my advertising days at Crayons. We were handling BJP campaign and b4 election were announced, I used to visit BJP headquarters a lot for collating publicity stuff or for presentations etc. During these meetings, rubbed my shoulders with couple of big names including Mr. Vajpayee himself but it was Mr. Mahajan with whom I had lot of interaction. The guy had a charismatic personality. You couldn't argue with him, or perhaps we being the vendors, never did. The guy was always surrounded by his chela chapatas who used to through weight around, but when it came to taking decisions like even approving small banner lines, Pramod used to call the shots. His knack for being technology savvy was reflected in the BJP headquarter media room. A young team that he had created used to sit here 24x7 watching each and every news item on TV, scanning through all print media reports, making databases of important stuff on comps.

In a recent interview he said he wished to be the Sachin Tendulkar of politics. He was on his way, no doubt about that. But unlike Sachin, I guess fate wanted him to take a break permanently from life.