Description

From Hampi to Harappa written with impeccable honesty is one among the best ten Telugu autobiographies in the twentieth century. Ramachandra’s humility, questioning of the self and the world, inner battle between the orthodox Vaishnava beliefs and modern education make this book remarkable. In nationalist struggle, he was lured by extremist ideas and found his own path again through grievous private trials. It is amazing that a great scholar in Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Prakrit and linguist had to experience hunger and had to travel across India to find a job to fill his belly in 30s and 40s. Many unbelievable incidents mark his life like his mentor Veturi Prabhakara Sastry experiencing ravenous hunger when the author survived on meager food, similarly his surviving on Ganga water for almost a month while waiting in Kanpur for a conman who promised business partnership. He undertook variegated jobs from that of a cataloguer in manuscript libraries, a worker in a hotel, to Havaldar clerk in the military before finally settling in a newspaper. He narrates these experiences poignantly blending them with cultural histories of innumerable places he lived in from Tanjavur in the South to Quetta in Baluchistan giving us glimpses of civilizations around Hampi to Harappa and insights into Modern India in Independence Movement.