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...