Ramesh Tilekar

Mr.Ramesh Tilekar was born on November 8th 1946 at Sangli (MH) India. He grew up in Pune where he attended various high ranked schools of that time, like, NMV. After finishing school, he studied Bachelor of Arts (BA) at S.P. College and this is where he devoted himself to the stage plays and social activism. He wrote, directed and acted in various plays for Purushottam trophy, a well known inter-college stage plays competition. He was one of the founder member of PDA and Theatre Academy. Upon successful completion of BA he studied and taken Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from Law College. Stayed in Russia for couple of years to learn Russian language and research on communism. He got fascinated by Karl Marx's, Lenin's and Angel's thought process towards the labor class. After coming back to India he started social work from grass root level as an ACTIVE member of Communist Party, Pune. His financial position wasn't so good which made him starting his own law practice in order to make living. He acted as a lead character of 'Ghashiram' in the historical play 'Ghashiram Kotwal'. The first stage show occurred on December 16th, 1972. This play made him famous within social and political circles of the society. He travelled around the world to perform Ghashiram. On the social front, he went on hunger strike to break the donation system at Vaishampayan Memorial Medical College, Solapur. He went on another hunger strike to have judicial system works in Marathi. In 1979, he ran for municipal election as an independent candidate. Out of thousand's of votes counted, he lost it by 16 votes. This became a turning point in his life, which remained till the end. In 1980's he left Communist Party of India (CPI), to join Congress under the guidance of Vitthalrao Gadgil. He had been offered a position of Ambassador of India to Belgium. But he rejected the offer saying he has to win at least one election (people's mandate) before accepting any official government position. During this time he was acting in various stage plays, like, Padgham, Madaan, Ashi Paakhare Yeti, etc. He debut couple of Marathi movies, like, Saamna, Sinhaasan, Pinjara, Goura cha Navara, etc. He was one of the best public speaker Congress was having during that time. He helped many political candidates to win by his exceptional public speeches during election campaign. His life was over on April 16th, 1995.