The passing away of Wishvas Rane or Bapu brought back memories of the various initiatives in which we were involved together since the late 1970s, and his mature, honest, rational approach from which we learnt so much. I got acquainted with Bapu in the late '70s when the Aarogya Dakshata Mandal, a Pune-based health NGO led by Arvind Patwardhan and Dr Rane, launched a pictorial health education periodical in Marathi called Silver Oak. This pioneering periodical was aimed at the neo-literate population, but was widely read by a much larger section of people because the contents were relevant, practical, to the point and scientifically sound.