Chilkuri Sushil Rao

  "It is raining bombs here," she said, sounding desperate. "Someone, please get me out of this place," she pleaded. Vijayalaxmi was in danger. She was in a helpless situation. That much was amply clear. It was in January 2017 that I came across this desperate plea for help on Twitter (now 'X'). There were no more details. The crux of the message had been conveyed to the world. I stopped at the tweet for a while. Who could this be? What really was the situation? Could I possibly be of any help? I did not know the answer. But I was indeed interested in trying. Wherever she was on earth, it was not in my power to stop the bombs or missiles that were being dropped there. I got in touch with Vijayalaxmi. I wanted to completely understand what the situation was. Vijayalaxmi sent me an audio recording of the sound of bombs and missiles. This convinced me, to an extent, that this indeed was a terrible situation to be in. "It is just too cold out here. Not a hu...

                                              Keeping its MLAs together as one flock was the most important thing at the moment. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress and the JD(S) shifted their newly elected MLAs from Karnataka to Hyderabad. The political tension in Karnataka was mounting. Elections to the Assembly were held on May 12, 2018. When the results were declared on May 15, there was a fractured verdict. No party got an absolute majority. The BJP got 104 seats, the Congress got 78 seats, the Janata Dal (Secular) got 37 seats and others got three seats. The total number of seats was 224. However, to form a government, 112 seats were needed. By virtue of emerging as the single largest party with 104 seats, the BJP staked claim to forming the government. The BJP put forward before Governor Vajubhai Vala that the party would be able to prove...

  They were in love. They expressed it to themselves. They wanted to proclaim this to the world. It's their life. It's their love. It's their decision. During a visit to the Charminar, I saw their proclamation. They inscribed their names on the monument. Not just this couple, but many more. Not just at one place, but at every place on the monument they possibly could. Indeed, it was their life. Their love. They had all the freedom to express it. At least, not at the cost of vandalising a more than four centuries old monument. It was vandalism, no doubt. The all too glaring inscriptions spoiled the very look of the monument, defacing it. In the early 1990s, when I was working for Deccan Chronicle, this was our system. We would type out our news reports. The original would be handed over to the desk. A carbon copy would be kept in the reporting bureau. Another copy would be sent to the sister publication Andhra Bhoomi. The office boy would generally be asked to go to that pla...

  There were risks involved. They were for real. Not imaginary. I stood near the bend into the lane at Mehboob ki Mehndi near the High Court. Do I make my way into the area or refrain? The safest answer option was: refrain. Why go there? Why take a risk? Why get into trouble? Why suffer shame? Why face embarrassing questions? And why end up in jail? Getting arrested and ending up in jail was a definite possibility. As a journalist working for Deccan Chronicle at that time, I had regularly reported about the police raiding the place. From time to time, whenever the raids happened, I also reported about the arrests of women engaged in prostitution, their "sethanis" who ran the business, and the house owners who rented out places for prostitution activities. I would also report about policemen getting arrested as they too would visit the red-light area and get caught. Like others, cases would be booked against them and they would be sent to jail. The law was the same for everyon...

                                                       "Rasoolpura," the voice at the other end said. No more details. Not even the house number. Not even the name of the specific area. No directions to the house. This was a tough task. It had to be done. And it had to be done immediately. I felt the urgency. There were many hassles. First thing was the deadline of the newspaper. And this tip-off came sometime close to midnight. Secondly, the near impossible situation of being able to find the place. This was in the early 1990s. No mobiles. No GPS. No location maps. But I felt it had to be done. The tip-off that I got was that a minor girl was to be married off to an aged man. He had come from one of the Gulf countries. The family found a reason to marry off the child to the man. They felt this was the best thing to do. The ...

  A 16-year-old girl was taken captive by her own family members. She became a prisoner in their hands. The ‘prison’ was bizarre. I went there to see for myself what was happening and to write a news report. This was in 1996. I was then working for A P Times. It baffled me as to how the family could have come up with such an idea. “It is the idea of a relative of the family,” the villagers told me. I travelled to this far-flung village in Mahbubnagar district to see this, and what I learnt was something I felt was criminal. A room was constructed for the girl to stay in. Here’s the catch. There was no door to the room. She could not come out of it, even if she wanted to. She had to use the same room to attend nature’s calls. From a small opening in one of the walls, she was given food to eat. This completely enclosed space was all her world. “Why?” I asked the family. “People are already flocking to our place from nearby villages in large numbers. They are paying obeisance to her,”...