Muthyala Pochamma was the presiding deity of Anantagiri village in Illantakunta mandal of Rajananna Sircilla district. This village borders Kochhaguttapally village in Chinnakodur mandal in Siddipet district.
Both these villages got submerged in the recently constructed Annapurna (Anantagiri) reservoir as part of Kaleswaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) and hundreds of people got displaced. While some lost their houses, others lost both houses and lands.
Tipparaveni Balakishan, a native of the village, who is working as cinematographer in the film field, felt that he should record the memories of the villages for posterity. So, during lockdown he planned a song on life in the two villages. The song Yellipothunname Pochamma, talli sallanga chudale mayamma’ covers several things like tradition of rangoli in the villages, milk collection, farming, coexistence among people and how the project separated them from each other.
“We lived together till yesterday and now thrown out at different directions and scattered, literally...” goes the song. “I used drones to picture the villages. Similarly, some pictures were taken before submergence of the villages,” Mr. Balakishan told The Hindu. The song was uploaded on Youtube and is going viral on social media.
