Jitendra babu and Telengana History Congress

 A passion and commitment for History. Some times in life we come across people whose subject  is not that particular area or discipline but they have  a lot of passion towards that subject. Shri K. Jitendra Babu is one such person. I met Jitendra  at the fifth Telangana history Congress at Munagala fort at  Kodad near  Surya pet. He is the one who along with Himabindu the local secretary had  organised this. He is an advocate by profession, a very good painter, a  Kuchipudi dancer and has a passion for History. He has a collection of Two lakh fifty thousand books and more than hundred rare manuscripts and an amazing collection of coins from ancient, medieval and modern period. He is the one who renovated the  fort by investing more than a crore rupees and is now establishing a Centre for Telengana History and Culture over here. It is also noteworthy that Mr. Santosh Reddy the descendants of the Nandigudem Samsthan   gave this property to him for lease for nine nine years.It was lying in a state of neglect with weeds grown all over and Jitendra has transformed this place. I was telling him he should have an exhibition of Before and After pictures. It will take some time to become fully functional. There are rooms for people to stay and in future this will become a great Research Centre. Jitendra took me around his collection. The books are in the process of being shifted from his home to this place and are lying in heaps. I saw the original of Tarikh I Ferishta  of Ferishta here. It also had another manuscript not used by any one till now. It is the Tarikh i-Tajmahal written by a contractor who during the making of the Tajmahal had kept a record of the day to day expenses and how much money is spent on which item. There was the writing of Shivaji when he wrote his name for the first time. There was also a last letter of Shivaji to Aurangzeb. I could see the writing of Ravindra Nath Tagore and Gandhi ji. There were a large number of manuscripts in Modi language. There are numerous manuscripts related to the Deccan too and he told me that our history of the Deccan will be different if some one uses these to write the history. He is publishing some of these manuscripts. This will be such a rich source and I really plan to visit this place after few years and see how it is growing. Jitendra may your tribe increase. It is great to come across a person with so much love and passion for our past and committed for preserving it.