#Pushpa2 has the Gangamma Jatara as the backdrop for an important scene.

What exactly is this Jatara about and what is it's significance?
While Gangamma Jatara is celebrated in Chittor dt, it is the Tirupati one that is really famous. She is believed to be the Grama Devata of Tirupathi, and also the sister of Shree Venkateswara.

G Pulla Reddy founder of the iconic sweet shop named after him. A Swayamsevak who donated 25 lakhs to VHP at the request of Ashok Singhal , to fund their legal expenses on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. All his shops would have a donation box for Ram Mandir. A truly great soul.l
Pulla Reddy Gaaru had very humble origins, started by selling sweets on a cart, moving from lane to lane. And then founded his sweet shop in Kurnool that soon grew into an iconic brand. Even now Pulla Reddy sweets is known for it's quality and taste.

Khudiram Bose one of the youngest martyrs of the freedom struggle at the age of 18, whose sacrifice gave an impetus to the freedom movement.

Thread on his Jayanti today.
#KhudiramBose He was born on December 3, 1889 in a small village, Habibpur near Midnapore. His father Trailokyanath Basu was the revenue agent for Nadazol province. #khudirambose

Telugus in Maharashtra
Nagpur- Good Telugu pop, mostly in Railways, NIT settled from long.
Shirdi- More or less a Telugu town in Maharashtra.
Mumbai-Pune region.
Other cities which have good number are Solapur, Aurangabad , Latur, Chandrapur. Marathwada being a part of the Hyderabad State, has many Telugus settled there, mostly in Aurangabad, Nanded, Parbhani. Conversely many Marathis too settled in Telangana, mostly in Hyderabad, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Karimnagar.

Vasudev Balwant Phadke, often called as the father of the Indian armed revolt, one of the great revolutionary heroes of freedom struggle.
Thread on his Jayanti today. A Chitpavan Brahmin from Konkan, who rallied the lower peasant castes like Dhangars, Kolis, Bhils as well as warrior communities like Ramoshis against British rule. He often attacked rich English businessmen or zamindars, to raise funds for his liberation struggle.

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the father of India’s nuclear program, founder of TIFR and Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay.

Thread on his Jayanti today. He was born into a well to do family in Mumbai on October 30,1909 to Jehangir Hormusji Bhabha, a prominent Parsi lawyer, and Meheren. He was related to prominent Parsi businessmen like Dinshaw Petit and Dorabji Tata.

Banda Singh Bahadur, one of the great Sikh warriors who was brutally tortured and executed in 1716 by the Mughals for his revolt and refusal to convert to Islam.

Thread on his Jayanti today. The great warrior was born as Lachmann Dev on October 1670 in Jammu’s Rajouri region to a Rajput family. It is believed he took to Sanyas, after seeing a pregant doe, he shot, writhing in pain and dying.

Subedar Joginder Singh dies in Chinese captivity on this date in 1962. PVC recipient, who took down 50 Chinese single handedly at Bumla Pass.

Thread on another real life hero. Bum La Pass, 37 km from Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, at around 15,200 ft above sea level, was part of an old trade route that went from Tawang to Tsona Dzong in Tibet.

Who are the Bishnois and what is their history?

They are basically a Vaishnava Panth found primarily in Western Rajasthan, and parts of Haryana, believed to have been founded by Guru Jambeshwar, who was born in a Rajput family, hailing from a small village in Nagaur district.
He was basically a cow herder, and at the age of 34 founded the Bishnoi sect at Samrathal Dhora. For the rest of his life, he would preach the values he laid down for the community in the form of Shabadwani, and that is why they are also called as Jambeshwarpanthis.

Rani Durgavati, queen of the Gonds, who defied the mighty Mughal Empire and killed herself than surrender to Akbar.

Thread on the Jayanti of one of the great queens of Indian history.
#RaniDurgavati Gondwana, a region that covers eastern Vidarbha, some parts of Western Chattisgarh, and Southern part of Madhya Pradesh. It is so named after it’s rulers the Gonds, a predominantly forested region, inhabited by tribals.

"I am just an ordinary man and not a very bright man.”

While we celebrate October 2 as Gandhi Jayanti    not many are aware that is the Jayanti of another great soul Lal Bahadur Shastri born on the same date, who never really got his due. For decades he was in the background, with few even aware of his contribution. It did not help that in an academia dotted with historians who could not see beyond Gandhi and Nehru, he never got due acknowledgment either.

Rani Rashmoni founder of the Dakshineshwar Temple in Kolkata, a lady whom Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa regarded as his own mother, a woman who took on the British, and in a way contributed to the Bengal Renaissance.

Thread on her Jayanti today. The widow of a wealthy businessman, Raja Chandra Das, Rashmoni was born into a humble Mahishya family on September 28, 1793 near Halisahar in the Northern Paraganas, to Harekrishna Biswas and Rampyari Devi.

Ashok Singhal the man who started the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, dedicated his life to the cause till his death, took blows leading the Kar Seva in Ayodhya, transformed VHP into a ground level organization.

Thread on his Jayanti today.





Ashok Singhal, a metallurgical engineering graduate from BHU, who joined the RSS after his graduation, and dedicated his entire life for the Hindu cause, living a simple, spartan life, never compromosing on the ideals he believed in.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, one of the icons of the Bengali renaissance. His actual surname was Bandopadhyaya, but he used his title Vidyasagar when he became a law Graduate.

Thread on his Jayanti today. There were so many facets to him, author, thinker, activist, social reformer. And above all a true humanist, one who reached out to the underprivileged, the faceless, the oppressed and downtrodden.

Ayyagari Sambasiva Rao, the founder of ECIL, and one of the great Indian scientists of modern era, who had worked with the likes of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai. The suburb around ECIL in Hyderabad is named after him.

Thread on his Jayanti. He was born in a small village Mogallu in West Godavari district on September 20, 1914, which also happens to be the ancestral village of the great revolutionary Alluri Sitarama Raju.

Telugu surnames and what do they mean exactly.

Unlike other parts of India, for Telugus surnames, are not identified with a caste per se, though there are some surnames specific to a caste.

For us surnames mean family names, which are based on various factors.

Thread. Typically for Telugus the naming convention is Family Name+ Real name, the caste name is usually optional, it's not binding. So unless someone explicitly tags their caste name , it is hard to make out from which community they are just on basis of surname.

Madan Lal Dhingra, close associate of Veer Savarkar, another great revolutionary who never really has got his due. A true patriot. Thread on his Jayanti today. Hailing from Amritsar, the sixth born of the city’s Civil Surgeon, two of his brothers were doctors, while two other were barristers. Coming from a well to do and influential family, Dhingra, could have settled into a life of luxury and comfort.

#OperationPolo #HyderabadLiberationDay
When the world's richest man, the Nizam surrendered to the Indian army, as Hyderabad became part of the Indian Union, remember this pic for posterity. Chakali Ilamma, the frail old woman who started off the Telangana revolt against the Nizam, that was the predecessor to Operation Polo. When she fought against the local Zamindar’s attempt to take over 4 acres of her land. #HyderabadLiberationDay
sadashree.substack.com/p/chakali-aila…

Would you believe that the Telangana revolt against the Nizam was started by this frail looking lady in the picture?

Chityala Ailamma better known as Chakali Ailamma who took on the might of the Nizams, his stooges armed with just a rokali( Pestle) and sheer courage. She was born in 1919 in Krishnapuram, a small village in Warangal dt, belonging to the Rajaka community, which accounts for her name too, Chakali is Telugu for washerman. A true heroine whose story needs to be told.
For a long time, the rural parts of Hyderabad State, were divided into what was called as Samsthanams, essentially pieces of feudal territories, under the oppresive rule of the Reddy, Velama doras in Telangana, the Deshmukhs in other regions, who ran a brutal and often oppressive rule.

They owned most of the land, and collected the taxes from the poor peasantry, and keeping them in perpetual bonded labor( called as Vetti Chakiri). These landlords were the masters of their own land, and had a good bonding with the Nizam and his nobles. The Nizam on the other hand, hardly had any control over these lands, and let the Doras run it as per their own free whims, it was pretty much a quid pro quo arrangement.

The upcoming Farhan Akhtar movie 120 Bahadur, deals with one of the most epic last man stands in history, the Battle of Reazang La in 1962, where 114 Ahir Soldiers under Major Shaitan Singh Bhatti, fought to the last man against a much larger Chinese regiment.

Thread on the real life battle.

In the annals of Indian Military history, #RezangLa , would be mentioned in the same breath as other “to the last man standing” battles like Masada, Alamo, Charge of the Light Brigade and Thermopylae.

We celebrate September 5 as #TeachersDay in honor of S. Radhakrishnan, however it is also the Jayanti of another great person not so well known.

V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, also known as Kapalottiya Tamizhan( The Tamil Helsman), one of the foremost freedom fighters of Tamil Nadu. And the first Indian to start a shipping service in competition to British monopoly.

A truly great freedom fighter, who unfortunately never got his due, and died in poverty in his lifetime. And a succesful entrepreneur too. He was born on September 5, 1872 in Ottapidaram a small town in Tuticorin district, famous for it’s Amman temple, and the fort of the legendary Tamil warrior Veera Pandya Kattabomman just 3 km away at Panchalankurichi.

His parents were Olaganerohathan Pillai and Paramayee Annal. He grew up learning about Shiva from his grandmother, and the Ramayana from his grandfather. Another teacher of his Subramanya Pillai, taught him on the Mahabharat.