Adilabad is in the news, thanks to the ongoing Nagoba Jatra, the biggest tribal festival of the country – at Keslapur. Over the years, my reporting assignments had taken me to various places in the Telugu states, but Adilabad was the one I instantly fell in love with. This was one reason I had chosen to go to that far-flung district at least four times a year during the Eighties and the Nineties.
I was charmed by its diversity and colour. The mighty Godavari, Pranahitha, Penganga, Kaddem and a host of smaller rivulets meander through the rich forests which account for about half of its geographical area. It also houses a significantly large chunk of the tribal population in the State. Here again, diversity is strikingly evident. Tribal communities as varied as the Gonds, Kolams, Naikpods, Lambadas, Pardhans, and Thotis live in symbiotic existence.
When I first went to the district headquarters town in 1980, I wondered if I was in Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra. Marwari traders and Maharashtrians seemed to be everywhere. I stayed in Dhanalakshmi Lodge, arguably the best of those days. I was woken up by the bearer who sauntered in with the breakfast tray. It consisted of samosa/ kachori and jalebis and not the idly or upma that my Telugu tummy was used to. Imagine starting the day with that kind of stuff. It was a culture shock of sorts. But I got over it soon. Resourceful people from the coastal areas were yet to invade with ‘Andhra meals.
My very first trip to the media-uncharted district had yielded more than a dozen stories, provoking colleagues to tease me ‘look, here comes the Adilabad specialist’.
Images from the past flit across the mind’s eye; like the Indervelli firing on the Gonds, police-naxal shoot-out in Alampally forest, Tamil Nadu Express accident near Sirpur and Dakshin Express derailment at Mancherial, dedicated efforts of officers like MVPC
Sastry, CVSK Sarma, K. R. Kishore, Subrahmanyam, Manohar Prasad, G.N. Phani Kumar to better a lot of the tribals, Prof. Christoph Von Haimendorf’s visit to perform last rituals of his dear wife Betty in Marlawai, and the colourful Keslapur jatra.
Three of us from Hyderabad were the first to reach Indervelli where the police had opened fire on restive Gonds the previous evening killing many and injuring many more. The administration was dazed. We trekked through the forest and hilltop habitations braving scorching summer heat and humidity to meet the injured or the kin of the dead.
My page one story rattled the SP (later Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad) so much that he referred to me ‘as that SOB’ at a press meet. It is another thing that back in Hyderabad, we became very good friends and continue to be so. Years later, I heard the Collector, Mr. A. K. Goel, tell a group of Forest officials in Mancherial that the Indervelli toll was much higher than the official figure.
Then there is this interesting story about how N.T. Rama Rao’s impulsive decision to camp overnight near the site of the Alampally encounter. The Chief Secretary, the DGP and others, who accompanied the Chief Minister, were worried about the chief minister’s safety should the naxalites make a reprisal attack.
NTR was in a different mood. He kept the officials and the tribals engaged with anecdotes from his film career – experiences during the shooting for Adavi Ramudu in the Mudumalai forests, and Paathalabhairavi.
It was during this visit that CVSK Sarma, Collector, caught the ear of the Chief Minister and made an articulate case for funds to help the long-neglected district. NTR immediately agreed and announced priority funds to make Adilabad ‘abhyudaya zilla’.
For long, Adilabad had never figured in the Government’s scheme of things because of its location. Officials considered a posting there as punishment. Successive chief ministers were wary of the jinx that a visit to Adilabad spelled the immediate loss of power.
Another touching experience was at Mancherial, where flash floods had breached the railway track and swept away Delhi- bound Dakshin Express in the late 80s. Officials and local conservancy men hesitated to remove the bloated, stinking bodies until Sarma, who had just taken charge as the Collector, got into the act and removed some bodies.
I love the district, its rivers, its forests and the natives. That is why Adilabad zindabad. (…to be continue)
