As long as I remember, many people that I know of in our part of the country (Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh), people refer to the city of Vellore as “Raya Vellore”. I never searched for the reasons but some recent events that crossed my path seemed to have answered.
Vellore cantonment railway station is under going renovation and during the railway minister of state (Mr. Velu) visit, locals had requested him to name the railway station as “Raya Vellore”. I still didn’t care to learn the history but when I was visiting a Xerox shop, the shop owner and another gentleman were conversing in a language that I thought was Kannada. When I enquired, he confirmed the language as Kannada and then he went on to talk so proudly about his forefathers.
He explained that his forefathers had carried the family name called ‘Raya’. So I ventured out to learn little history about the city I call it a home now. Apparently the Xerox shop owner is correct and the history of this city goes as far back as 1500’s. It was called ‘Raya Vellore’ to differentiate it from another Vellore that existed then.
As I was thinking over, a thought crossed my mind about a famous king that I had studied as a young boy. The character name is ‘Krishnadeva Raya’. Now a famous university is named after him in Andhra Pradesh and it is not very far from Vellore (probably less than 200 kilometers). So I searched on his name and I was pleasantly surprised to find him also being part of the ‘Raya’ members of this area.
Knowing what I know now about the rich history behind our town, it is only appropriate that ‘Vellore Contonment’ railway station be renamed as ‘Raya Vellore’ to remember the forefathers of this town. I am proud to be a part of this historical town.
Click here to learn more about Vellore fort from Wikipedia.
Click here to view the beautiful image of Vellore fort
No comments:
Post a Comment