Dear friends,
Have you ever walked by Godavari on a moonlit night? Have you ever traveled in a boat on Godavari? Have you ever been to Devipatnam, Rampa chodavaram and those wonderfully remote places?
Ok, I confess. I am a Guntur person. Not even that. I grew up in a village 11 miles from Guntur. Till I was 20, I have never even seen Godavari. I read about it [gOdavaree paavanOdaara makhila bhaaratamu maadannanaaDu ...], I dreamt about it, [uppongi po'yindi go'daavaree, taanu teppunna egasindi go'daavaree], and even pretended I was from there.
Finally, I had a chance to go to Godavari. I was in final year B.Tech. in Madras and I worked in the winter and had some spare change burning a hole in my pocket. And, I wasn't keen on Mardigras anyway.
I was going to visit a friend from Annavaram near Yeleswaram and go to Devipatnam and travel along the coast. We were going to camp and sleep outside and if needed, stay with his relatives.
I reached Yeleswaram on a sunny morning. There was a prominent billboard near the busstand "ichat'a bhootavaidyamu chEyabaDunu-". Apparently this business has become popular and even gained respectability among the middle class after that wonderfully scientific book "tulasI daLam " (Tulasi Dalam) by Yandamoori. I managed to hitch a ride to Annavaram on a tractor along with some agriculture workers. My handbag elicited some curious comments: it was a fashion statement of calculated coolness in IIT, but people in the tractor thought I was a christian preacher!!
My destination was Annavaram. I am sure there are as many annavarams in AP as there are springfields in USA. This is one of the not-so-famous Annavarams. The place is famous only for its cashew crop. My friend Giri lives outside the village on the farm. It is next to the forests and "annalu-" occasionally visit them. [annalu = naxalites or other underground socially disgruntled workers]. And, yes, the farm is visited by hyenas also. On the second day, I even saw a calf attacked by a tiger previous night.
Till I was in that village, I was thinking that the Godavari people are really rich. Apparently the forest area people are still suffering from lack of any infrastructure. Later I went to places like pasivedala and they were rich!
From there, we left for Addatigala. Anybody who has seen the movie "allu'ri seeta'ra'ma raaju-" knows this name. It seemed a small town. And there are several tile manufacturing places in that area. From there we reached rampa chodavaram. [again the place where Alluri attacked the police stations]
Beyond that place, there are thick forests and places like maredumilli. We were planning on going to Devipatnam but we already missed the bus. We had to stay back in rampa chodavram. Because of our shoestring budget, we decided to sleep in the busstand. But fortunately, we met a person there [Giri established a typically teluguish connection with him; apparently Giri knew his cousin] and he let us sleep in the "chaavaDi," where the animals are kept. He said, even he slept there because of "domestic situation".
So, because of that "domestic situation", we went to a hotel (= restaurant) to eat. It was in the evening, we were the first customers. The place was just cleaned and there was "guggilam" smoke around it. [It is the same smoke they put under the beds of infants.] We were hungry and tired. It might be that, but for 5 rupees, I had the most divine meal I ever had. Fully vegetarian, clean, unlimited and served hot with hospitality of strangers. I even remember telling the owner that he should open a place outside IIT.
After such a meal, we decided to top it off by watching a video movie in a theater. We went for the first show; the movie was "renDu reLLu aaru-". I don't remember the movie but I still remember the night.
-- rama
nETi hEmanta Sidhila patraala madhya nilachi
nATi vaasanta sameera prasaaraala talachi
intE gadaa jeevitam anna cinta
inta lOnE mugisindanna vanta
chedirina kaLLatO evarannaa choostaarani mukham tippukunTAnu.
- Tilak [Not the one from "maanDalE jailulo"]