Vishakapatnam December 29-30

My flight arrived in Vishakapatnam at 8:15 am. I was met by a driver, who took me to Rani Sarma’s house. I had gotten to know Rani through our mutual interests in Hyderabad’s heritage and I had helped her with her book about the palaces of Hyderabad, which was published in 2008 under the title, The Deodhis of Hyderabad. Her husband was formerly the principal of the Administrative Staff College in Hyderabad, but they are now living in nominal retirement in Vishakapatnam. Rani is now working on two related studies on the early Buddhist presence along the coast of Andhra Pradesh near Vishakapatnam and on maritime trade, so during my two previous visits, they had taken me to see a few of the many nearby early Buddhist sites.

As we were chatting, Rani remembered that on one of my earlier visits, I had spoken about my family background and how my mother’s family lays claim to having the longest-lasting family round-robin letter, which was started in the late 19th century. Rani decided that the people of Vishakapatnam would want to know about this, so she called up a reporter from The Hindu newspaper. The reporter came right away, and so I soon found myself explaining this bit of family history, all the while wondering whether this was really newsworthy. The article, which gets some things garbled, came out in the January 1 Andhra Pradesh edition of The Hindu. It can easily be found be googling “Schick” and “Hindu”.

In the afternoon we went on an excursion to a site north of Vishakapatnam, where a stream flows into the ocean. It would be a prime spot for a port settlement. I did not see much of anything to point to an ancient site there, although apparently the locals bulldozed two large mounds not too long ago.

Fishermen along the coast

For the next day, Wednesday December 30, Rani had organized another trip to visit a Buddhist site with the district archaeologist, but he had to cancel at the last minute. So Rani and I went on our own to visit Bheemunipatnam, an excavated early Buddhist site north of Vishakapatnam. In the 16th century the Dutch had built a residence on the hill top.

Rani Sarma at one of the early Buddhist stupas at Bheemunipatnam, with the Dutch residence in the background.

Rani with a Buddhist sculpture

On the next morning December 31, I took the 6:00 am train from Vishakapatnam to Vijayawada.