Chapter 24: chapter 24

20Like weather forecasts in the radio, the news about the Naxalites appeared daily in the Andhra newspapers. everyday there would be some news item such as surrender, peace talks, bomb blasting, murder of the police personnel. There was recently an incident: a grocer was killed by the Naxalites as they suspected that he was a police informer. It happened in a village called Angronapalli. On the same day, the Naxalites stopped a bus in a village called Vadaveralapalli in Mahbub Nagar district, asked the passengers to get down and then set it aflame. They also burnt two vehicles belonged to the Coca-Cola company. All these incidents happened on the same day.The Naxalites indulged in such activities, as a kind of retaliatory measure, whenever their comrades were killed or tortured by the police. Their reactions were expected whenever the police showed their high-handedness. When there was no action by the police, the Naxalites also kept quiet.Gaddar, belonging to the People’s War Group, would be walking around Secunderabad casually now and then. The police who went in search of Naxalites and killed them, never touched Gaddar. It seemed that he was going around the city as a silent observer. It was widely believed that if the police lay a finger on him, then the lives of some minister or the chief minister himself would be in jeopardy.Whenever the Andhra Government temporarily lifted its ban on the People’ War Group, or invited its leaders for talks or slept over the matter, Gaddar’s meetings were arranged in Hyderabad. Usually, the Nizam College grounds where the meetings were held, overflowed with lakhs of people. Throughout the night, Gaddar would be singing and there would be folk-dances by his group. Then he would simply vanish and there would be no such meetings for years together.Gaddar was residing In the Venkitapuram area. To reach that place one had to pass through Secunderabad. Venkitapuram had a thick population of Tamils. Gaddar was seen often in the surroundings of Secunderabad railway station. When people would express their surprise on seeing him, he would be walking casually or travelling in a bus. I had seen him quite a few times in the pavement book shop that was opposite to the Pillaiyar temple in the Secunderabad station.Once I saw him looking at the books in that pavement shop. At that time painter Santhanam had drawn a picture of Gaddar for the jacket of a book by Siliguil Pothiyaverppan. In that picture, Gaddar was portrayed in his usual pose-with a blanket with black, red and white colours wound around his shoulder, participating in a folk- dance programme. I told him about the jacket. He told me some names of the comrades who belonged to the Tamil Nadu wing of the People’s War Group. At that time, Gaddar’s meetings were conducted in many parts of Tamil Nadu. I did not know any of the comrades Gaddar had mentioned. I very much wanted that I should show his picture on the jacket of Pothiyaverpan’s book. I went home, searched for the book, got it and then returned to the shop. But by that time, Gaddar had already disappeared.Gaddar’s appearance was always surprising and shocking. Once, two rival groups of Naxalites fired at each other in the bus stop near the Secunderabad railway station. I, who went there accidentally, saw a man in a pool of blood.Like Gaddar, Kannapiran P.U.C.L, the poet Varavara Rao and Radhakrishnan were frequently seen in the city.Gaddar also appeared in the painting and photographic exhibitions conducted by the Telugu film director, B. Narasing Rao. As he was a friend of Narasing Rao, Gaddar had also made an appearance, singing a song in the latter’s film Rangula Kala. The producers who wanted to focus on peoples’ revolutions wanted Gaddar to appear in their films. Madala Rangarao was a Communist. He had acted in many films. Narayana Rao had written screen plays for many films which focussed on the Naxalites and on the people who lived in the places occupied by the Naxalites. Films like Erramall (Red Jasmine) were dubbed into Tamil.Whenever I remembered Gaddar, I remembered the black, white and red blanket that he wound around his shoulder and his hand stick. In the meetings that were pre-arranged in places like Gara and Kankal, people gathered in lakhs to listen to him. The size of the crowd was simply unimaginable.Gadddar came once to the Tamil book exhibition. The crowd was very thin. P.V. Narasing Rao was invited to the book exhibition that day. As I requested Gaddar to come with him, he also came. When I compelled him to sing, he sang a few songs. At that time, he did not have his usual gear- the stick in his hand and the anklets in his feet. But the force with which he sang was mind-blowing!Perhaps, he, who was used to singing before a crowd of lakhs of people, might have felt a bit embarrassed to sing before an audience of just twenty people! But he honoured the Tamils through his songs, saying that the Tamils were his friends. His sonorous voice filled the rooms of the Mahbub College and further travelled to shake the hearts of the people who were living in the Mahatma Gandhi street.When he was absconding and during his training of his followers, Gaddar might have taken classes to such small groups. On that day, that small crowd seemed to me a small class like that of Gaddar. I remember none in that group any more. That small number was never an honour to Gaddar’s voice, even now I feel.