manohar parrikar was never a great orator his speeches didnt have the style or poetry of some of indias finest politicians but it was still hard not to listen to the man with rapt attentionhe never read from prepared speeches and relied on anecdotes to hold everyones attention whether he was narrating an incident from his childhood or getting nostalgic over a recollection from his college days the audience was bound to come under his spellone of his most humorous memory from his childhood was also an excellent showcase of the quickwitted politician he came to be according to parrikar he had gone to watch an adult film but had the misfortune of being caught out by a neighbour who was also at the theatrethis neighbour used to speak with my mother every evening i told myself we are dead so i left the movie midway and told my mother we had gone to watch a movie but since it turned out to be a dirty one we left midway parrikar said not forgetting to tell his mother about the neighbours presencetrue to expectations the man turned up at home only to get a good piece of my mothers mindparrikar made a special mention of his mother radhabai in many of his speeches she had high expectations of her son and one can imagine her joy when an astrologer told her that he would grow up to be an engineerfor many he was a stern taskmaster but he wielded humour in his own inimitable style speaking at the opening of iit goa campus parrikar amused the audience with an incident from his iitbombay days one that almost saw him not getting the certificate to show for his days spent therewhen i was awarded the distinguished alumnus award by iitbombay in 2001 the then dean panicked when he could not find my name in the records he called me up then it struck me that my official name is prabhu parrikar i had to phone him and tell him please check prabhu parrikar parrikar said i stayed there for sixandahalf years all that could not have been total imagination he recalled telling the deaneducation has always been his pet portfolio and students his biggest concern like the proverbial wise man he always had an anecdote ready to pass on a bit of wisdom