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Sankaran's postcards

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  Shankaran is unique in the way he greets and wishes people on their birthdays. Shankaran sends a post card with birthday wishes. I have got several cards from him over the years. The greeting card will invariably have some additional information. He lists the names of some well-known people who were born on the same date. All of his friends receive such cards from Shankaran. There are three ways the card lands on your table. He would post it and it would be delivered. If he was in the office itself, he would personally come to wish and hand over the birthday card. If one was not around in the office, he would leave it at the table. Shankaran continued with this practice even though he left TOI a few years ago. His greeting card would still land on the table or he would personally leave it at the reception. I worked in the editorial and he worked in another department. We would always talk. We would talk on subjects that I was not interested in. He would assume that the two subjec...
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A recall: On the occasion of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 35th death anniversary

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  I asked Rajiv Gandhi a pointed question. He was not unwilling to answer it. He did not feel it was a question that could be dismissed or ignored. After all, what I asked him was for his insight and analysis on things that had happened. This was at 10 Janpath, New Delhi. I will come to what I asked him and what he said later in this write-up, but let me first narrate an experiment that I conducted at the former Prime Minister’s house. As a visitor, I was curious about his security. I wondered whether his security was good enough. I was prompted to think about this for two reasons: his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was assassinated on October 31, 1984. She was staying at 1, Safdarjung Road, which was the official residence of the Prime Minister. From her residence she was walking to her office at No. 1, Akbar Road, which was interconnected. One of her security personnel opened fire and killed her. Some years later, I visited the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum at 1, Safdarjun...
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A victim of human trafficking gets her freedom

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  (Ch Sushil Rao: This is an entry from my diary on 7 February 2017. This detailed recollection captures the agony of a woman from Hyderabad who was trafficked to Saudi Arabia. As a journalist, I wrote news reports about the plight of the victim who was eventually rescued. Some sentences have been put in direct quotes to capture the essence of what was spoken. Covering this case was deeply satisfying — the reports played a small but real part in bringing a trapped woman back home.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She was face to face with a harsh reality. The woman from Hyderabad was locked inside a small room. Her hands were tied with a rope, the other end fastened to a window grille in the dingy enclosure into which she had been pushed. The 30-year-old woman felt humiliated. Agony overwhelmed her. Tears welled up in her eyes. The employer in Saudi Arabia was cruel to her. "I paid Rs 3 lakh for you,...
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A cry for help from the desert and the rescue

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  "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...
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In the thick of a political drama

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                                              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...
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"Brilliant, brilliant!" he exclaimed. And then walked away. "Who was he?" I wondered.

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  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...
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Taking up a task at Mehboob ki Mehndi, a red light area in Hyderabad

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  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...
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