He taught Sushma Swaraj to speak without fear

When Leeladhar Viyogi's family got together for his 50th wedding anniversary in Haridwar five years ago, he gave his two daughters Rs 500 each as kharchi, a token allowance that's a tradition in the Viyogi family. Sushma Swaraj got it too. "She always does. She is like my daughter. She has been part of the family for 44 years now," Viyogi says.

In 1966, 14-year-old Sushma Sharma joined SD College in Ambala Cantt, where Prof Viyogi was a faculty member in the Sanskrit department and a key member of the college's `Hindi Sahitya Kala Parishad'. Sushma was not a student of Hindi but Viyogi was quick to spot her oratorical talent and groomed her for debate and declamation contests. "She was short and would get dwarfed by the podium, so she had to step aside. But once she spoke, all the competition would crumble," he says with a disarming smile. "Her talent is God's gift. I only shaped it and gave it direction," he says.

In the book Anukarniya Guru (Gurus worthy of being Emulated), Sushma has written a chapter where she has paid tributes to the "three gurus" who shaped her life--her mother, Prof Leeladhar Viyogi and Jai Prakash Narayan.
"He took me to all the debate and elocution competitions. I owe my oratory to Prof Viyogi Sushma," says Sushma Swaraj.