Chilkuri Sushil Rao

He came and sat on the sofa and looked at me.  I looked the other way.  He looked expectantly at me. I avoided his glance. I did not know who he was. I was at the Raj Bhavan and had fixed time to interview Giani Zail Singh. He was the president of India from 1982 to 1987. The image of a president was that of one wearing a white turban, and the red rose that was conspicuous in the buttonhole of his dress.  That is how we’d seen Giani Zail Singh as president. I got into journalism in 1988. It was perhaps in the following year that Zail Singh came to Hyderabad. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984 and her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister by then President Zail Singh. In the general elections that followed, Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a massive victory – largely because of the sympathy that had got generated due to the killing of Indira Gandhi. As I sat in a room at Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad,   I was r...

I was sitting at the departures terminal when someone greeted me. I was sure I did not know him. The man did a ‘namasthe’.   I did not respond. I thought I was being rude. Another came by with folded hands. Also did the same with a nod and a slight bend of the body. Did I know him? I did not. This happened a couple of years ago when I sat at the Chennai airport to take a flight to return to Hyderabad. I’d gone there on an official visit. Since I did not want to be late to the airport and not wanting to take any chances, I reached the airport quite in advance. I sat on a chair. Looked around. Check my mobile. Looked up. And there again was a group of people, all clad in white lungi and shirt. They were standing some distance in front of me behind a railing on the airport premises at the departures. The group became a crowd. Everyone did a ‘namasthe’. Pray, what was happening? I was   rattled. I did not know them. And I knew that I did not know any of them. W...

\ Indira Gandhi  Etched in memory: As a nine-year-old I waited for a glimpse of Indira Gandhi and waved to her Word had spread that Indira Gandhi would be driving past our house .   I ran out from the Wesley Church Musheerabad premises, where our family stayed. I stayed put on the road. The cops were all over for her security. Why would a nine-year-old’s mind have the inclination and the interest to go out there and wait for her? Indira Gandhi was to take the road beside Rahat Mahal theatre (now Raja Deluxe) and proceed towards Ramnagar. This was part of the Musheerabad assembly constituency falling under the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency purview. She had come campaigning for the Congress party in the 1977 general elections. As a child, I would read the newspapers every day. Perhaps this was because my father Chilkuri Samuel, would engross himself in following the day’s news with much interest. From January 1966 to March 1977, Indira Gandhi...

The man wearing a crumpled coat caught my attention. Some noticed him  –  as someone not actually dressed properly  for the occasion. It was an ‘at home’ hosted by President R Venkatraman at the Rashtrapati Nilayam, Bolarum, Hyderabad. The “who’s who” of the city was there. I saw cricketer Mohd Azharuddin. Made small talk with him. But it was the man who was standing aloof, who grabbed my attention. Not one seemed to know him. I did. He was standing out in the motley crowd. Never mind his crumpled coat. Never mind his unkempt hair. Never mind him being by himself. I walked up to him. He was taken by surprise that someone even seemed to know him. He wasn’t a celebrity. He wasn’t behaving like he was trying to grab attention. He stood there, where he was. Stood apart, would be a better description. We shook hands. He was pretty amused that somebody had recognized him. Abdul Kalam was heading a defence establishment in Hyderabad as far back as in 1988-89. At that ...

“Turn the fan towards us,” she said as she sat on her chair with me beside her. I’d been waiting for her to finish the shot and she was also aware that I’d come. I had met her the previous day at Sarathi Studios at Ameerpet. She was shooting for song in a film. “It’s a tight schedule today. Can we meet tomorrow again for a more leisurely talk?” She said it with a smile. Polite. Her disposition was impression. Silk Smitha was well mannered. I’d always wondered if she indeed had than so child-like voice that one got to watch in her movies. Was that voice ‘made-up’ to sound teasing? I’d wondered about that. So that one thing was clarified with the very first meeting. The next day took too long to come. Or so I felt. I had many questions to ask Silk Smitha. Very, many, clarifications to seek. To know her story. How she became, where she had come up. But would I get to sit with her with as much ‘leisure’ as she had promised knowing well that she would be at work shooting? Or would she...