MS Shanker
There are journalists, and then there are legends. Dharmavaram Sitaram firmly belonged to the latter tribe. Rough-edged, sharp-tongued, and merciless in his mentoring style, he was as much a tormentor as a teacher. But ask those who came under his wing—often unwillingly—and they will tell you that his harassment was actually his version of a crash course in journalism. Brutal, yes. Effective, absolutely.
On his centenary, it is only fair to dust off memories of this fiery man who wrote, reported, and ruffled feathers in ways today’s comfort-zone journalists can only dream of.
I must admit, my own experience with him was not pleasant. Working with Sitaram was like being pushed into a storm—loud, relentless, and unforgiving. He didn’t care about your feelings. He cared about your copy. He drove you, needled you, even humiliated you. But in the end, he forged professionals out of raw enthusiasts. I can grumble about my bruises, but I cannot deny the steel he left behind. He was my mentor—even if the mentoring often came with fire and brimstone.
What made Sitaram remarkable was not just his journalistic nose for news, but his ability to rise above every disadvantage. He was a product of Islamiya High School, a humble Urdu-medium institution in Secunderabad during the Nizam’s rule. Academic credentials? None worth bragging about. Yet, he mastered English journalism with flair that put conventionally educated scribes to shame.
As a young man, he was witness to the horrors of the Razakars—Nizam’s private militia that bled Hyderabad in the years after Independence. Unlike armchair columnists who pontificate decades later, Sitaram had actually confronted that terror as a youth. His later writings on Hyderabad’s turbulent politics carried the authority of someone who had lived through history, not just reported it.
Sitaram began small, with a local news agency, but soon found his big stage in the United News of India (UNI). Here, he was not only a crack reporter but also a hustler with remarkable marketing flair. He often bragged, half-seriously, that he could sell teleprinters like vegetables. That salesmanship, coupled with his uncanny ability to sniff news, caught the eye of stalwarts like Kuldip Nayar. Before long, Sitaram was UNI’s Andhra Pradesh bureau chief—a position he wielded with both authority and audacity.
Sitaram was not the kind to tiptoe around power. He took on heavyweights when he was barely in his twenties. One of his early scoops exposed a Congress minister insulting a member of a downtrodden community with caste slurs—an act that would later become a crime under IPC. The fallout was explosive. The then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Kasu Brahmananda Reddy, had him packed off from Hyderabad. Lesser mortals would have licked their wounds and vanished. Sitaram simply dusted off his coat and thrived elsewhere. For him, journalism was not about survival—it was about battle.
Stories of his eccentric style abound. On one of the Prime Minister’s foreign tours, he stunned fellow correspondents by filing his dispatch on a newly introduced typewriter—while on the move. The sight of Sitaram hammering away became a talking point in foreign press, who described him as a “journalist on wheels.” In hindsight, “journalist in orbit” might have been more fitting—because he was always miles ahead of the pack.
Sitaram was not content with just UNI. He strung for half a dozen national papers, including The Statesman, and kept himself perpetually in the thick of things. His bylines were everywhere, his reports crisp, and his credibility unquestioned. He also dabbled in independent publishing, launching The Skyline, before moving on to Deccan Chronicle. Wherever he went, he left behind a trail of high standards and higher tempers.
If anecdotes defined him, two stand out: his reporting of the last Nizam’s death, and later, that of Jayaprakash Narayan. Both stories carried Sitaram’s trademark stamp of immediacy and authority. For him, news was not something you waited for. It was something you pounced on, lived through, and delivered before anyone else could even lace their shoes.
Today, as we remember D. Sitaram on his centenary, we do not just remember a journalist. We remember a phenomenon—half mentor, half tormentor, and full-time firebrand. He was not polished. He was not gentle. But he was real. He taught us that journalism is not about comfort but about courage. And for that, despite the scars, many of us remain grateful.
Sitaram may have passed away two decades ago, but his legacy lingers like the ringing of a typewriter in a noisy newsroom. Loud. Relentless. Impossible to ignore.
