met him in the 1950s the sight of the silent statesman is heartrending vajpayee who had known ghatates father babasaheb ghatate a senior hindu mahasabha leader took the young law student under his wing in delhi and treated him like a younger brother of all the things that the protracted illness has taken away ghatate misses vajpayees sense of humour the most when ghatate gave him the news of the death of jn dixit manmohan singhs first national security advisor vajpayee said he was a good man his problem was he used to work hard and worry a lot about the consequences ghatate pointed out vajpayees nsa and dixits predecessor brajesh mishra was also hard working to which vajpayee retorted with a mischievous smile yes brajesh too was hard working but then i had to worry about the consequences ghatate recounted this to mishra and the two had a good laugh ghatate has been busy compiling vajpayees jokes and witticisms into a book he has so far collected about 80 he knows there are many more out there