Erriah Board

Erriah Board- I strongly believe everyone who roots in this town or relationship with this town,should have come aross this name once or twice.To the people of yesteryears this black board was a valuable source of information.This article is about the man behind this board,Sri Erriah,who has been writing news on this board for the past 44 years.He is undoubtedly a prominent person fromthis place.

Kamisetty Muniswamy Erriah was born in Kamavaram, Kothapeta of Pulicherla Mandal.In 1941 he had to come to Chitoor to pursue his 5th standard.In 1948 he completed SSLC fromthe B.Z.High School.After this he had to look after his fathers bookshop in the Bazaar Street.

Learning Tamil

Once he and his friend from Palamaner had to go to Kanchi on some work.Both struggled a lot in reading the boards and understanding the language there. On return Erriah determined to learn Tamil. He went to a teacher and he was asked to pay 15 Rs/month.He thought that amount was too much and bought a book for 2 Annas.Though he struggled in the beginning, his zeal to learn the language made his task easy. As he was running the bookshop he got better chance to go through various books. In this process he read some of the books written by Anna Durai, the founder of DMK party. He found them interesting and went through all the volumes. The interesting point here is ,he was not aware of Anna Durai then.

In 1951, DMK party organized a meeting in Chittoor.Erriah got chance to attend the meeting. People are giving speech and the meeting was in full swing. Erriah found the speech to be similar to what he read in the books previously. So he stood up and shouted I know what these people are saying, I read all these in a book, these people are...this... that ...etc., etc.,People gathered there got angry over him and shouted what he has read is written by their leader. Erriah feared at their anger and returned home immediately.
(to be contd...)