Coining a golden Telangana

Anugu Harish Reddy, a numismatist, made a Telangana map with a Kakatiya Thoranam by using twenty-one thousand and thirty-one (21,031) old and new coins. He displayed his artwork at Ravindra Bharathi at the recently concluded Telangana State Formation Day celebrations.

“The two states – Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were merged for 21,031 days since the formation of Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956, so I used that many coins to showcase that,” said Harish, who used five rupees golden coins to make the map to portray ‘Bangaru Telangana’.

Harish hails from Motibaigudem village in Nalgonda district and he pursuing his graduation in Hyderabad. His map found a place in Limca Book of Records, India Book of Records, Telangana Book of Records, Telugu Book of Records, World Amazing Records, Wonder Book of Records and Universal Book of Records for creating ‘Largest Map made with Coins’.

“I started collecting coins from October 10, 2010, and I decided to make a Telangana map with them. I made the map in 2014 and displayed it first in Nalgonda. The dimensions of the map are 18.4ft long and 17.2ft wide,” Harish shared, who has worked actively in Telangana movement from 2009.

He used Hali and Kaldari coins to make the Kakatiya Kala Thoranam on the map. He collected more than 5,000 rare coins like Mudda Paisa, which belongs to the Nizams; Chilli Gavva, Ragi Paisa and Kani. He also used 1 paisa, 2 paisa, 5 paisa and 10 paisa coins to make the thoranam.

“I spent Rs 1 lakh to make this map and my dream is to represent Telangana tableau with coins at the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi,” Harish said, who aspires to pursue PhD in commerce.

By:V Sateesh Reddy