Chilkuri Sushil Rao

  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,...

  I correctly analysed what the poll results would be. The assessment turned out to be accurate. On April 18, 2004, I wrote this report in The Times of India, Hyderabad. The substance of the report was that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had reason to worry about its prospects of returning to power. The ruling TDP contested 267 seats in alliance with the BJP and won 47 seats. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), formed in 2001, was contesting the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections for the first time. The party was created to fight for a separate Telangana state. It joined hands with the Congress and contested the elections held in April–May 2004. According to the analysis I made, the TRS had already proved its mettle in the panchayat polls held three years earlier, where it secured a vote share of 20 per cent. Under the seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress, the TRS contested 54 seats and won 26. The Congress contested 234 seats and won 185. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congres...

  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...

  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...

  (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,...