King and the Kingdom

The last two days I have been to the nearby district of Warangal on a gratifying field visit. It also provided me an opportunity to experience up close the life of my classmate and dearfriend Kamal in the Tribal Agency Area of Etunagaram. Kamal is working as the Programme Manager, NREGS in the ITDA. Kamal being the second ranked officer in the 80x80 km² area of Etunagaram reigns like a lord over his staff and the beneficiary subjects. The king and his reign are nothing less than magnificent and Augustus. His use of authority and the way by which he commanded respect from his staff and people made me tiny-bit jealous.

The hillocks with pristine green beauty and paddyfields extending to the horizon however mask the fact that the Kingdom is not in a pretty shape. This was the hot bed of naxalism around two decades back. Phallic menhirs coated in blood red profusely dot the landscape even now. The forest area apparently borders with Chattisgarh and tribal people sifts through the forest to both states occasionally. My local staff told me that even now in many villages they are occasionally surrounded by so called naxallites. In fact today morning when I entered a village named Royyur many young people surrounded our vehicle. They wanted to know whether we had come to start some microfinance activity. 

Kamal and his league of ITDA PMs gets a bad weather allowance of five grants per month, an extra to the remuneration that is received by other IRMANs working in cities.  Nevertheless after seeing the environment in which he lives I genuinely feels that the extra allowance paid to the people working here is quite meagre.

Tidbits: 
We happened to have our lunch from a roadside eatery which had an impressive statue of a lady revolutionary in its tiny yard. The only decipherable writings I could make out of the plaque was "CPI ML" and two dates in 1947 and 1989. Eager to hear a riveting story I inquired about her to the two staff members accompanying us. The elder person retorted "She is INDIRA GANDHI !!!"...it took a moment to sink in, Indira Gandhi being part of CPIML ! In the end she turned out to be a lady named Fulak (or something near to that). She died in an encounter with Police in 1989.