Chilkuri Sushil Rao

  The shop, as I noticed, had no name. The shop, as I soon discovered, however, had considerable fame. I stopped almost immediately when I noticed it. It caught my eye. My attention. It was for such things that I had a fascination. It was a two-wheeler mechanic's shop. So that should not arouse anybody's interest. It was, after all, a mechanic's shop, as I mentioned. Yet the very look of it fascinated me. A man inside the one-room shop was repairing a bike. He was sitting in the centre of the small shop and was engrossed in putting a bike back into shape. That should not be an unusual sight to be drawn to. But I was not only drawn to it, I stood in front of it for a while and looked at it thoughtfully. To me, it was a piece of art. A complete piece of art. The look was unique. On its walls were parts of the bikes that they repaired. To me, there was beauty in it. I saw it not as a mechanic's shop but as an art gallery. The entire shop as a piece of art. "Can I tak...

  Thank you Sushma Swaraj. Thank you TOI. Thank you Sushil Rao. This is what the poster reads. This quite literally moved me. The poster was held aloft by a group of sailors on a ship in the Persian Gulf in 2017. The seafarers on a commercial vessel were in a difficult situation. Thanks to the intervention of the then Union Minister Sushma Swaraj, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Protector General, Government of India, Director General of Shipping, Consul General of India in Dubai, officials and individuals who went out of their way to help them when they were in dire straits, the seafarers could return to India safely. I am truly humbled by the fact that they held this poster aloft on their ship. When I wrote news reports about their plight in the newspaper, I did it out of concern for them. I did a small part as a journalist bringing to light the fact that they were in a difficult situation, quite literally abandoned, and needed help. It came as a surprise to me when they se...

  "The Speaker is calling you," a staff member from the Speaker's office came and informed me. I was sitting in the media gallery of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. This was in 1989. What was my mistake? How had I erred? From the very beginning of my career in 1988, I was asked to cover the assembly proceedings. Everything was new. I did not know the MLAs by name. I did not know which party they belonged to. The only thing that was clear was that those in the treasury benches were legislators belonging to the ruling party. On the opposite side, the leader of the opposition and main opposition party MLAs sit. The legislators belonging to the other parties have a seating arrangement, and this too is on the other side of the treasury benches. There was nothing that I knew about assembly coverage. But thanks to my seniors in the profession, I gradually understood. All of them represented other newspapers, English, Telugu, Urdu and Hindi. If I had to learn something, ...

Sometimes I would notice him standing on the balcony of the building in Ramakrishna Cine Studios at Golconda Cross Roads in Hyderabad. This was before he launched the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on 29 March 1982. He probably was out there to get some fresh air. So his mind was not completely occupied with the agenda on hand. We lived at Risalagadda, a few minutes' walk from Ramakrishna Cine Studios. Sometimes, we would catch a glimpse of the famed actor and there were occasions when we also caught his attention. In those moments, he would reciprocate when I waved to him. This was during 1981 and 1982. I was a student of Class VIII or IX then. It was mostly when I was returning home from Wesley Boys High School near Paradise, where I studied, that I would notice him. The only film of NTR I had watched was "Adavi Ramudu", which was released in 1977. I was nine years old then. We, however, got to hear some very interesting stories about NTR and his acting. His personal make-up ...

  It was a fake medal. A high-ranking senior Army official wore it on his uniform. Not just him — many others also had the same fake medals. Why would they have to show off a fake medal? I was curious. I tried to understand. I could not understand it. What came as a shocker was that it was not an uncommon practice to wear a fake medal and display it. Everyone seemed to know that there were fake medals. Fake. How could it possibly be? An expert on defence affairs, who was from Hyderabad but lived abroad, had a better understanding. "Even you can get the medals," he told me. That sounded casual. He said it like it was a matter of fact. This aroused my curiosity even more. "They are available for a price and can be bought over the counter," he said. How could various Sena medals that the Army gave to its personnel be available to anyone? I went to a shop at Trimulgherry in Secunderabad, in the Army area. There are several shops at Lal Bazaar selling Army uniforms and t...

  "Okay, I have to leave now," K. Chandrasekhar Rao said. We wondered where he was headed as he suddenly got up to leave. A few other reporters and I were sitting across the table, talking with him. Usually, after addressing a press conference, he would go to his chair and table in what served as an office room adjacent to the hall. This was at another premises before the present Telangana Bhavan was constructed in Banjara Hills and from where the party started functioning in 2006. We were not aware of any other political activity for the day when we sat with KCR in his office chatting with him. So, when he suddenly announced that he had to leave, I could not help asking him: "Where?" "To Koti," he said. "Why?" I asked. "To buy footwear," he answered. KCR was particular about buying his footwear from that very shop. The right size. The right fit. The right number. For KCR, the president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi that he founded,...