“I was eleven years old when India’s struggle for independence came to an end. I was born and brought up in Machlipatnam. We had the privilege of witnessing some of the great people of that period who fought for our nation’s independence. Even before celebrating the national festivals, I remember how we used to hoist the flag every day and were made to sing the national anthem after which our day at the school would begin. The most memorable celebration I have of Republic Day was when we shifted from Machlipatnam to Hyderabad and got the opportunity to witness the parade at Parade Grounds. It was an honorable memory and experience for us. As I never beheld something like this before, indeed it felt privileged and emotional.

It was a time period when every individual in the society did their part towards the freedom struggle. For instance, women use to donate their gold. It was a time when we did not have a mobile phone, television sets, or even radio for that matter. We used to communicate through telegrams and word of mouth. The news of India attaining freedom was informed through telegrams and radios. Listening to the news was a matter of great satisfaction and relief during the freedom moment.

The generation during the freedom struggle has gone through great hardships. We did have a lot of exploitation that happened under the rule of the British. While I was working at the Imperial Bank of India, presently called The State Bank Of India, it had a majority of foreigners. I recollect how our seniors from the bank spoke about us Indians being exploited by the foreigners at the bank. For instance, our seniors were never given specific working hours. Our salaries as bank employees was very minimal at 90 rupees. And because the British were at a higher post, they definitely got paid more than us with a luxurious lifestyle.

I remember, our neighbors were from Hyderabad, and we use to call them “Naizamolu” as they were from the Nizam’s rule. Machlipatnam has a seaport, through which the French and the British entered India. Port activities were in full swing since it was the period of East India Company, a lot of imports and exports began to happen eventually.

During those days, the streets of Machlipatnam were called “Peta”, and the same continues now as well. The specialty of that place was, if we would want to know what the time was, we use to have something called a “Firangi” which was a bomb like an object that used to get lit and explode giving out a loud sound. We used to use that to know what the time it was. This was done twice a day, once at twelve o’clock in the noon and the second one at eight o’clock in the evening as the concept of watches were quite rare. We never had a computer, therefore we had to do manual entries into the ledgers and the accounts were maintained manually. We use to manually convert Adha Rupayee and Pavla into Paise manually.

Having seen so many evolutions in the last 80 years,
I would like to tell the youth of this Nation to celebrate Republic day and Independence day not as a formality but as a day of unity. Involve yourselves in doing good to the ones in need with no other motive but a sense of selflessness.”