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Today is my father's 24th death anniversary. He died in 1998 and at age eighty eight. He was a civil servant in the truest sense. He was always very civil and served his government and his people with dedication and courage.
NK Guruswamy was educated at Wesley High School, Secunderabad and then Nizam College, Hyderabad and the Madras Christian College. He joined the Nizam's government in 1933 and was posted in the Gond populated areas of Khammam district and the lived in places with exotic names like Burghumpahad, Palwancha and Yellandu. For the next six years he travelled in the densely forested tracts on horseback and my motehr followed in a bullock cart. It was his collection of books on the Gonds and other Adivasi people of the Deccan which got me interested in these people, and are still with me.
In 1939, my father joined the Army and served in Arakan, New Delhi and Quetta. He rose to become a Lt.Colonel. In 1947 he rejoined the Nizam's Government and after integration was taken into the first batch of the IAS and was posted as the Special Officer in the communist insurgency affected districts of Warangal and Khammam to co-ordinate anti-insurgency operations. Many of the underground communist leaders and activists were his friends at Nizam College or relatives and children of friends. These contacts paid off and he played a key role in negotiating the surrender and coming overground of many communists. By 1951 there was no insurgency, but a thrving communist influence. In the 1952 elections communist leaders won many of the Telangana seats and the tallest of them Ravi Narayan Reddy won Nalgonda with a higher plurality than Jawaharlal Nehru in Phulpur.
Life in a civil service family had its ups and downs. We lived more modestly than many of our family friends and even relatives. But we never lacked books. My father maintained accounts at several bookshops like Kidambi's and JC Pinto and we given license to buy whatever we wanted by just signing for them. But we went to school riding our bicycles or by public transport. We went to the Secunderabad Club, but only to swim and a rare treat of a plate of chips and the clubs delicious tomato sauce, which we used to lick clean.
Life was good. My father ran a very benign regime with few rules. It was mother who made the rules and who enforced them with a riding crop, when required. My father preferred to tell us about the Five Year plans and international crises like Suez and Hungary. Professionally and socially he kept rising. He held several important positions in the IAS and retired as the First Member of the Board of Revenue with the rank of Chief Secretary. He was also the President of the Hyderabad Cricket Association, Andhra Pradesh Football and Hockey Associations, Chairman AP Sports Council and President of the Secunderabad Club among others.
My father was also a scholar and knew Urdu, Persian and Tamil. He was a voracious reader and his other passion was golf. He taught me the importance of being fair and compassionate, frugal but generous, that it was more important to be thoughtful than thought well off, and that one could always do better. He was our inspiration. When I got the Mason fellowship at Harvard he was very happy, but when my daughter was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, I saw tears in his eyes for the first time in my life. He just said: "I think we did well!"
I still miss his benign presence.
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