There is unmistakable joy on Anumandla Ravinder’s face when he tells his friends and relatives about his lifelong dream finally taking shape on a 140-square yard plot: building a house for his family. A resident of Theegalaguttapally, on the outskirts of Karimnagar city in northern Telangana, about 160 kilometres from Hyderabad, the 49-year-old, with his modest stature and demeanour, embodies the quintessential traits of a middle-class family man. With the concrete slab recently laid for the house, his excitement is evident. But his eyes well up as he reflects on the journey that led him here.
Mistaken for tears of joy, they hide his pain as he recalls the solitary battle he fought against a powerful land-grabbing gang led by a local politician. Starting off as a supervisor at a bar nearly three decades ago, he climbed his way up to the position of manager.
With his modest savings, Ravinder, a Dalit, purchased an open plot on the city outskirts in 2014. Over the next couple of years, he constructed a basement on the plot with contributions from his near and dear ones. All seemed well until a call in May 2022 shattered his dreams: a neighbor reported unauthorised digging on his plot to lay pillar foundations.
