Rajahmundry-Men, myths and marvels

While a cruel British officer General O’dwyer killed a thousand peaceful civilians at Punjab, Yet another British army general built a magnificent barrage across river Godavari, at Rajahmundry. He is Sir Arthur Cotton whose massive irrigation projects transformed Godavari region into the rice bowl of India. Presently there are four bridges across river Godavari at Rajahmundry. Each one is an engineering marvel, the earliest bridge (The Havelock Bridge) was commissioned in the year 1897.

Rajahmundry is a semi urban town. The people are warm, peace loving and helpful; most of the population is self-employed and they own small and medium businesses. The cultural knowledge, the exposure to the modern world and its ideals is almost nil among its citizens. Men and women still dwell in primitive superstition in spite of their education and wearing modern attires. The cinema and media culture has deprived them their original way of thinking, language and their intrinsic culture.

There are many bathing ghats at Rajahmundry where variety of people congregate, some for bathing, some to perform poojas , rites, and obsequies. The priests, pilgrims from other parts of India, hawkers, barbers, beggars, fisherman, and very few people like me who appreciate the natural beauty of the river are present there. Of late there is a trend to keep these Ghats clean and promote them as tourist attractions. Novel attempt of “Godavari haarathi” is a synergistic effort between the priest community, local tourist officials and the town administrators

The Godavari bund road can be made as most scenic promenades of the country. But present bund road is an eye sore. It has been vulgarly over decorated, with manicured gardens, fancy structures and parks interspersed with bronze statues of various personalities from political field, literature and cinema.

If we keep Religious myths at bay there is hardly any surviving structure or any edifice in Rajahmundry which is older than eighteenth century. There are lots of temples on the banks of river Godavari in Rajahmundry. They have undergone consistent changes and now evolved totally into ultra-modern temples and all original structures have been sadly lost.

Fifty years ago Archaeologists, excavated an area and found structures supposed to be the foundation of a fort attributed to Raja Raja Narendra’s time.( 11 cent AD). A bureaucrat of archaeology department told me the excavated pits have been closed again with mud for safe keeping. Thick vegetation has now cropped up in the place. The site is close to the present day hotel La hospin.

We have an interesting small museum facing the banks of the river called “Rallabandi Subba Rao Archaeological Museum”. There is a collection of modern and medieval sculptures that pertain to the surrounding areas. Few beautiful bronzes are also there. A life size wooden sculpture of a female nude which was originally made by tribes of Maharashtra found its way to Rajahmundry floating on water during Godavari heavy floods and now is a prominent exhibit at the museum.

Telugus have a remarkable distinction of forgetting their prominent people and abandoning their ideals. Mr Kandukuri Veresalingam (1848 –1919) is one such forgotten great man; A Poet, social reformer, a renaissance man, and a founding father of modern Rajahmundry.  Sadly, I don’t think youngsters these days have any faintest idea of the social reforms he had carried out. His ancestral house at Vankayala Veedhi has been turned into a museum where his photographs, correspondence and his memorabilia are kept for public viewing. His Samadhi is also open to public. Needless to say these places are forlorn and no one visits them

If you are an art lover, do visit Damerla Rama Rao Art gallery and be spellbound by the mastery of Rama Rao’s water colour and powerful sketches.

Buy Ratnam pens, handcrafted silver and gold pens if you are rich or buy equally intricate economy models made out of Ebonite. You may contact to this phone no<99481 76830> <ratnampens@gmail.com>for commercial enquiries)

South Indian food is easily available in the city, but exclusive vegetarian hotels are scarce. There are plenty of restaurants which dispense western fast food varieties -vegetarian and non-vegetarian; I am not particularly a fan of those.

For Sweet lovers: having Tapeswaram khaja,   Poota rekulu, Gangaraju’s Milk khoa is a sine qua non of Rajahmundry visit.

Artos is the name of cola beverage locally made, its history dates back to colonial times. Please try.

Apart from countless IMFL outlets and high-end luxury bars, Toddy and Arrack is available. It is said they apparently mix sleeping pills and other kinds of chemical substances into the liquor for increasing the “kick”; obviously this writer has not tasted them hence cannot vouch for the quality.

Today is Ugadi, New Year day of Telugus all over the globe and my greetings to all who celebrate and during the same time a draconian quarantine is also being imposed on the people worldwide to counter Corona menace.

The writer has been living in the town of Rajahmundry since seven years. He is a reclusive and a non-conformist person. You are entitled to differ from his observations.

Thank you for the patient reading and your feedback is appreciated. Enjoy the photographs that follows this write up. 

Srinivas Krothapally

Rajamahendri

24, March-2020

Exhibit at the museum

Ratnam pen works 

Ratnam Pens