Humari Maange Poori Karo

I came back home a minute ago.

I was caught in a traffic jam. So I decided to get off the auto rickshaw and walk the extra distance home. After walking a little distance I saw a few hundred police men and nearly 200 pedestrians look up. Immediately a show called Candid Camera came to my mind, where such phenomenon would be common. Surely this was taking the joke too far, since the traffic jam affected an area up to a 3 kilometre radius. Looking more closely, my jaw dropped.



A man had climbed the billboard. The message was clear.



There was some brouhaha around me and upon asking one of the bystanders there who had been witnessing the commotion I got to know that the gentleman on top, Mr Madan Mohan Reddy, was a resident of interior Andhra and had lost nearly 2 acres of his land. He had tried to contact the Chief Minister many times to seek his assistance regarding the matter, but to no avail. And that this isn’t the first time he’s doing something like this. Already having climbed several billboards this month, this guy is out there to make a point. This particular billboard, as shown in the picture is right outside the Chief Ministers residence at Begumpet, Hyderabad (guess that explains the hundred policemen). Apparently this was a classic case of land grabbing. He realised that the only way to get the CM’s attention is to do something radical. He is sitting (and occasionally standing) there right now, even as I write this article.

My point is; this was what he was forced to do to make himself heard. Upon hearing this, my maid had a glimmer of hope in her eyes. She too had lost land worth 2 lakh rupees and jokingly said that maybe she too should occupy one of these billboards and create a scene. Hopefully, this should give him enough media attention for the CM to take a notice.

Also, quite often what does happen is that these people get beaten up rather badly by the police later. That’s what happened on earlier instances which had a man climb up the flood lights of the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad.

Another point: more than half the traffic blockage had nothing to do with the man. It was the police who occupied half the road.

Update: I was just flipping through the news channels and saw that some ministers have negotiated with him and asked him to come down.