NVS Reddy chugs on 'Megha Patham', a poetic treatise of 'Metro' moments

HYDERABAD: "When Ramalinga Raju had announced that he indulged in fraudulent practices, I was completely doomed. It has done so much damage to the image of the combined state of Andhra Pradesh, the Brand Hyderabad, the Metro Rail, for whom the contract was awarded, turned out to be a non-starter and I felt my career has come to a naught," recalled Nallamilli Venkata Satyanarayana Reddy, Managing Director of the Hyderabad Metro rail Ltd.

NVS Reddy, as he is popular, was narrating the myriad hardships during the excruciating journey in creating the dream project of Metro Rail at a function organised to release his autobiographical poetry of the mega project and his tryst with the trials and tribulations with a name, "Megha Patham" (Cloud Route) all along here on Tuesday.

If it's not for L&T, no other engineering giant could have created this technological marvel as the stations were positioned on balanced cantilever structures based on the model of a bird. Laced with emotion, Reddy indeed spoke from the heart, on his difficult, yet passionate, journey in creating the Hyderabad Metro Rail from the scratch in his treatise. The rhythmic poems chugged their way into the hearts of readers as they dwelt at length with the events describing every wee bit of the efforts put in the making of the engineering marvel.

The HMRL MD announced that free book exhibitions could be organised on Metro stations and urged the CEO of L&T Metro Rail, who was also present off the dais, to permit the same and secured an instant nod. The suggestion was made by Juluri Gowrishankar, Chairman of Telangana Sahitya Academy.

Moving back to the Metro poetry, he read out some poems contextually and said the Public-Private Partnership document prepared for HMRL was approved as a standard one globally. The procedural hurdles including the permissions from the railways, defence and national highways had all taken over five years of time. Reddy did not mince words in his poetry when he took on politicians of different parties, without any exception.

The poems that dealt with the antics and angularities of several attention-mongers had explained how his team managed to remove 38 places of worship of different religions sprouting often on the roads, the patient legal battles fought with regard to 370 disputed structures meant for acquisition along the course of the Metro Rail and how his effigies were burnt in protest.

When the officials stumbled upon a beautiful historic structure beneath the ground opposite the Assembly up to a distance of almost three kilometres, he narrated how the archaeological structure had to be preserved, yet the course of the train was taken care of.

Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told NVS Reddy that the Hyderabad Metro Rail would become a role model for PPP mode in the world.

Shanta Biotechnics chief K I Varaprasada Reddy, Prof. N Gopi of Telugu University and others were also present on the occasion and heaped encomiums on Mr Reddy's poetic face and heroic bureaucratic feat.