Nearly 50 years ago, I landed in Kurnool to join The Hindu as its roving correspondent. I left Hyderabad amid mixed feelings of sadness at being away from the family and the excitement of a new job at a new place.
Day One, Jan. 21, 1977, went off routinely with me submitting joining reports and making introductory calls.
I woke up the following morning completely overtaken by home-sickness. Gone was the euphoria. The place looked gloomy and forlorn and the people distant and unfamiliar. In a fit of desperation, I even considered kicking the job and returning to Hyderabad.
A friend from Konaseematold me ‘banish the thought sir. This is a nice place and people are friendly and warm. You will realise this before long’.
Hypnotized by his magical words, I started liking the place and the people. Gone was the homesickness; Kurnool became ‘my home.’
My first contact was R. V. Seshadri, considered the face of the Press locally. He introduced me to many important people. I used his portable typewriter to file my stories. I would give him a copy for his use. Soon I found myself obliged to extend this facility to other reporters too. All they had to do was to present it at the telegraph office as if it were their own.
I rented out a spacious first floor portion of a house in NR Pet, once the official residence of the First Member, Board of Revenue, when Kurnool was the capital of Andhra State. The ground floor occupant was S. Raghurami Reddy, ex-Samithi president, later MLC and the Mayor. Soon, my office sent me a brand-new Remington portable and telephone.
We reporters – T. Madhusudhana Rao (Andhra Prabha & Indian Express), Siva Sarma (Eenaadu & AIR), Krishnamoorthy (The Hindu) and C.L. Krishnaswamy (PTI) – would converge at Kalkura Hotel for ‘uchitha coffee’ hosted by its affable proprietor K.C. Kalkura.
Known to friends as KCK, he loved to lecture us on politics or any subject under the sun and named the platform ‘sutti peetham.’
The Telegraph office, headed by a friendly guy, had a few typewriters for the press. Reporters used the press-bearing authority card to file their stories or make trunk calls. The telegrams were termed (I think) BGQ (ordinary) or BGXQ (express). Collectorate, Police Hqrts., courts, the bus stand and the telegraph office were close to one another.
I would go home once in four or six weeks, the bus fare being Rs 4 (concessional one-third fare). The bus journey was a sickening five to six hour long affair. Day services skipped the national highway and detoured via Gopalpet, Bijnapalle and Jadcherla.
Plate meals at Geetha mess in Kurnool cost Rs 4, the food so good I was never once bored of eating in my three-year-long stint.
Madhusudhana Rao, my colleague at the Express group in Vijayawada, soon joined me as a staffer. We worked together closely and reaped a rich harvest of stories.
We built excellent equation with the set-up at the SP’s camp office, headed by Pattabhi Reddy. Such was our bonding that he would phone us and say ‘twaraga raandi. Mirchi bajjilu, punugulu challari pothunnai.’ We also had good working relationship with collectors S. Kasipandian, N.S. Hariharan, SPs V.S. Ravi, Janakraj, DIG N. Radhakrishna Murthy and other senior officials.
Another personal friend was Dr. P. Koteswara Rao, head of Forensic Medicine at the Kurnool Medical College. He became a celebrity overnight thanks to his deposition in the sensational famous Rameeza bi case. Pointing to an object in a glass case, he asked us ‘Know what is this?’ and answered ‘the foetus of Rameeza bi.’ This incident in Hyderabad, leading to firings and curfew, during early 1978 nearly shook the Channa Reddy Government on its nascent foundations. Rameeza Bi was molested by cops in the Nallakunta police station and her husband beaten to death in their custody. According to him, Rameeza became pregnant and the police hurriedly got it aborted to avoid further trouble.
Krishnamurthy handled day-to-day coverage, enabling me to tour the Anantapur, Cuddapah, Mahbubnagar, and Nalgonda districts and do special stories. This was a great learning experience.
Chief Minister Channa Reddy was notorious for unpunctuality. He attended an important conference in Kurnool almost 20 hours behind schedule, keeping the organisers and people waiting. No word of apology.
During a praja durbar, he asked the collector why he did not implement a scheme. Hariharan explained he could not execute it for want of the G.O. ‘Don’t you know my word is G.O.,’ he thundered.
The dream run came to an end in August 1979 on my transfer to Hyderabad. It was painful to be torn away from a place we all loved so much. To be back in Hyderabad was of course God’s gift.
Farewell meetings were emotional. Kalkura invited us for a treat of homemade dosas, the taste of which lingers to this day.
Another touching moment was when our Hyderabad-bound bus was intercepted by a scooterist on the outskirts. He confronted us ‘what guruvu garu. You are leaving without even telling me. I am lucky I caught up with you.’ That was Dr. Koteswara Rao, the forensic expert and later Principal of Kakinada medical college. I choked for words and the eyes turned moist as he thrust in my hands an ornate pen knife and a scrap book containing clippings of my reports painstakingly gathered over the years.
We all loved the place. Little wonder that when asked ‘evooramma meedi?’ my four-year-old son screamed ‘Kunroooool!’