Turning to poetry to express pain of losing his home

65-year-old farmer lost his five-acre land in Etigaddakishtapur due to Mallannasagar reservoir

“Ooru kanneru pedutunnadi. Vagulu cheruvulu sariponundaga, pantalu pande panta bhoomulani neetana munche Mallannaagarani ooranta kaneeru pedutunnadi (The entire village is weeping as our lands are being submerged with water which are cultivable and there are tanks and streams which can provide us irrigation)”. S. Yadaiah is no poet, but life’s unexpected twists and turns have certainly turned him into one. The 65-year-old farmer owned about five acres in his village, Etigaddakishtapur, in Toguta mandal, but lost his precious land to the State government’s ambitious Mallannasagar reservoir project. It was in 2016 that the residents of Kondapaka and Toguta mandals, where the reservoir is coming up, were informed that their villages would be submerged by the redesigned Mallannasagar and that they have to vacate what they had always known to be ‘home’. That came as a severe jolt to Yadaiah, who has since then been penning songs on the plight of the land oustees. Forget reading literature, he is not even educated, but the lines come naturally to him.