Monday, January 5, 2015

Musings of an Old Man - Part 1

I sat beside a Old man who is in 70's, while traveling to Nandyal along with my mother and grand mother.

I always ask my grand mother(aged 90 + current) what it is her life like in Pre independent India.

She never answered. For the fact, she does not know Gandhi too!

So, I got a chance finally to interact with an old man from our Region - Rayalaseema.

Rayalaseema is famous for Faction-ism but what about Independence?

His Story goes this way :

Rayalaseema is called Ceded Region as it ceded to British by Nizam emperor. Nizam was so clever and fooled British by giving off  Un-fertile region for British services. There used to be only one collector and a few employees form British and they were afraid of Palegars who were brutal. British used to have a small army and mostly Indians from the same region. These employees fear Palegars more than British and used to ran away if they were asked to fight Palegars.

British as such has less impact in this region. Factors were many.

Under Palegars, there was no fixity in terms of Landholdings or Taxation of the meager produce they get. It was tough.

When I was born in 1940. I used to hear stories from my grand ma and grand pa about palegars. when I was growing up, It was more about factionism and killing each other to satiate the Ego factor.

Own brothers used to kill each other to show the entire region who is supreme. Its all about power and things to satisfy their Ego!!!

There were good people who wanted to improve literacy among people and worked hard towards equity. Even those people were not spared as they were getting good name for the deeds they used to do.

Regarding British, by the time I was 7, I used to listen regarding independence struggle in a radio arranged by my Uncle at the Village center. But we ourselves did not know how independence tastes like. For us, independence was to get good crop.

Some Villages promoted harmony. In the sense, They were no factionists, no politicians but some good people who used to take care of villages.

Only a few people had factionists. Most of those villages had less fertile land.

Where the land was fertile, people used to concentrate on land tilling rather than Man Killing.

Good or Bad... It is used to exist in patches... In this world.. we are no one to judge.. But we are some one to live on this world... that life was in danger for most of time in Rayalaseema in pre and post independence. Mostly fueled by Palegars, Factionists and currently politicians.

I love our region as it is my place of birth... so never encourage someone to control of our land, our water, our culture and ourselves.



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