A passion to bring back history alive

Anil Kumar Reddy, running his own software company in Benguluru has a passion to bring the mortal remains of History back to life. He does research on the history of a region and identifies ancient and dilapidated buildings that has a history to boast of and a tale to tell. He then takes upon himself the onus of repairing the remains of history and giving it a face lift without interfering with its original architecture and its pristine beauty. Hailing from Anantapur district, he embarked upon the mission of bringing back history to life and in the process zeroed upon a 100 year old 'Rachanapalle Bridge' built by the British Regime. This bridge then connected Anantapur and Bellary the industrial town located in Karnataka which facilitated trade and commerce between the two regions.

"The pathetic thing behind the rat race of life is the beauty of the historical remains that stare at us every day but none takes time to stop and have a glance at such monuments nor listen to its story", says Anil Kumar. Right under the nose of the residents of the city is an imposing structure of a 100-year-old 'Rachanapalle Bridge' built by the British using the services of an Indian engineer Raghavan but none is aware of the history of the bridge built 100 years ago on November 22, 1921. This very bridge was responsible for advancement of trade and commerce between Anantapur and Bellary, the erstwhile territory of AP but in the process of formation of linguistic states the Bellary town was merged with Karnataka. However, the famous Rachanapalle bridge built bridges between the twin towns Bellary and Anantapur remained in AP. Even today hundreds of vehicles pass through the rich economic route using the bridge.

While everyone is blissfully ignorant or neglecting the great legacy, Anil Kumar is thinking differently. He wants to awaken the citizens of the city from apathy and showcase the rich historical monuments and share the story of the remains of history that go unnoticed. Immediately he gave wings to his passion and created a Facebook group called 'discover Anantapur' but it is not just creating a Facebook group, first with his own funds he renovated the old structure without disturbing its originality and gave a facelift prompting travellers and passersby to get curious to know about the history of the bridge and thus his mission is accomplished. The bridge is 370 feet in length and 27 feet in breadth with 14 pillars and 12 arches. Anil said that he is spending his personal fortune on this project as he believed in paying back to the society in this form. He believes in inspiring the society to turn into a voluntary force to bring back history alive. This he calls it Citizen's Social Responsibility as against the much-touted Corporate Social Responsibility.