‘The Assassin of Diguvametta’

 ‘The Assassin of Diguvametta’ is a story by Kenneth anderson in his book Tales from the Indian Jungles. He expresses his intense love of India here, why he preferred to stay in India than in any other western country. He says that dense forests, the utter solitude of a jungle within fifty miles from his home, the varied languages and dialects of the towns, tribesmen are all these reasons that made him to stay in India. He further states that, “My friends cannot understand when I tell them that these things are the reasons why I love India, why I do not think I shall ever leave it.’’ (Anderson Tales from the Indian Jungles 92.)

New look of RS :"There was no passenger train in the direction of Basavapuram during the day, but fortunately a goods train was scheduled to pass through at about eleven that very morning. The station-master stopped the train for me, and I travelled in the guard's van to Basavapuram".

Broad gauge train at Diguvametta RS in a rainy day: "I had now spent some five days in this area,The jungles had been exceptionally silent since my arrival. Another reason for choosing Diguvametta as my camping-  place, at least for the present, was of course the fact that it was here that the tiger had last killed, just over three days previously.  the jungle was in- tensely dry,  We had combed the area in a radius of well over two hundred yards and found nothing, not even a remnant of torn cloth from her garment.  I did not want to disturb the area further, for it had already been disturbed by the party of men who had come searching for the girl and found her basket"

The meter gauge train and vegetation of the around the area. The  pictures captured as screen shot and   are from a 1990 Telugu romantic comedy film named Bobbili Raja (Telugu: బొబ్బిలి రాజా) directed by B. Gopal. It stars Venkatessh in the lead role and Divya Bharati in her film debut alongside Vanisree, and Kaikala Satyanarayana in other roles. Music was scored by Ilayaraja. This means  atleast untill 1990 there was regular traffic though this route.

The OLd track in KA stories track passed through the Nallamala Hills and as a result quite a few major engineering works were undertaken in the course of the railroad construction, the most impressive of them being the massive Dorabavi Viaduct and the Bogada Tunnel (We cam name it Old Bogada LONG tunnel , as per KA) both of them about 30 km from Nandyal. This section was converted to Broad Gauge during 1993-95. The gauge conversion was a difficult task owing to the difficult terrain. The old alignment between Gazulapalli and Diguvametta was abandoned and a new Bogada tunnel, about 1.6 km in length and a new Dorabavi Viaduct located at a much lower altitude were constructed at a huge expense.

The exclusive bridge Dorabavi viaduct was engineering monument in the South Central Railway,

The serene forest location of the bridge, on the Nallamala Hills, had its own exotic aura as a picnic spot.This viaduct had great historic back ground as British engineers did awesome work and opened the metre gauge traffic in the year 1887, Deep gorges of Nallamala forest and hillock regions were connected through the above bridge.Nearly 420 tons of steel was procured from the Burming Ham Steel Industry, in Briton. The Railway authorities had also dug a well named Dorala Bavi to mitigate drinking water for the British rulers during their halts.

KA described in another story as he looked down from the bridge , where treetops far below. However, the 110-year old bridge continued to be a great picnic spot for the tourists though it was discontinued due to the construction of an alternative route as part of gauge conversion between Nandyal and Giddalur.

Mercilessly, the Railways had sold out the monument as scrap for just Rs 4 crore and the Doravri Bridge was destroyed for Iron scarp. Presently, a shape less structure stands at the spot.

 The location  of the story is the  present forests between Chelama and Diguvametta in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Anderson admires picturesque scenery of that area and it provided him utter peace and solitude and the friendship with wild Chenchu tribesmen.  Anderson tells  his visit to Diguvametta and his stay at the forest bungalow whose caretaker was his old friend Aleem Khan. It was Aleem Khan who informed him about a panther that proved troublesome in future. The panther dragged away his dog from the forest bungalow. Then he continues his account of his stay at Diguvametta forest bungalow where he meets the district forest officer, (D.F.O.) His meeting with D.F.O. is very interesting, he passes political comment and expresses his dislike of the government officers.. Anderson also narrates how he purchased a small plot of land from Ranga Reddy at Diguvametta to  get rid over the government officers in occupying forest bungalows.  The D.F.O. invited him to shoot the panther but Anderson failed to shoot it. Then he returned to Bangalore. After four months Anderson received a letter from Aleem, reporting that the panther had killed a railway ganger between the long bridge and the water-column. Then next letter came about a month later reporting another human kill by the panther. Then he received the telegram from Aleem informing him that Panther had killed his sister’s child. Anderson rushed to Diguvametta and came to know about that incident. He learns that the panther dragged the girl from a little grave under a stone slab ‘mischief.’ Anderson narrates the story of the British forest officer and his little dog named ‘mischief’. Anderson decided to sit on the tombstone at night to wait for the panther but it did not turn on that night. Then he.  received information that the Chenchu tribesman was killed by the panther on the same night. So he made another plan with Aleem. Both of them would hide somewhere on the hillside above the mouth of the railway tunnel. The final encounter with the panther was horrible experience for Anderson and he has described it vividly. The panther attacked on them from behind and there was face to face fight between them. Anderson fired into the face of the panther at point-blank range, and it fell with a loud thud upon the railway track below

JOSHUA MATHEW visited the place, and rediscovered in this video. please click here  to see it on you tube