గ్రేట్ ఆంధ్ర కి ఎక్కిన తామా రచ్చ

TAMA Elections And What They Mean To NATS And TANA

I was in Atlanta for Thanksgiving holidays, visiting some friends and family. While this was my favorite destinations ever since I came to the US years back, I found something of a stark difference from my last few visits. Atlanta boasts one of the largest Telugu communities in the US. I used to meet different people while attending parties. Never did I see two dominant communities fighting this hard before. Apparently this is because of elections for TAMA. My cousins and their friends are not in talking terms because they belong to different communities. I was appalled by this behavior and inquired as to what’s happening in Atlanta. What I found made me ashamed even more.

Apparently, TAMA Executive committee headed by one Satyanarayana Reddy made some innocent mistakes in handling some simple issues. As TAMA is a non-profit organization, to serve on the Executive Committee is not a full time job. A day or two late in communicating some decisions made by TAMA, gave a past president enough ammunition to go to the court (?). This past president is a successful businessman and he had his share of errors and omissions when he served on the committee as well after. Here comes the real strange situation. He represents TANA and he was fighting the people that split TANA to make way for NATS. So this past honorable president now sides with NATS people and wants to tarnish the image of Satyanarayana Reddy and defeat him. He and his NATS friends spend heavily to recruit new members for this purpose. Remember how much these same people spent against each other in Chicago and California, ridiculing each other?

Here are the questions I had in my mind while flying back from Atlanta to Miami last Sunday night: Why is that these people want to make all non-profit organizations that they are in, political? Why would these people go to courts and waste so much of their energies as well as time and money of others? Is it the caste feeling that is making these TANA and NATS supporters who have been fighting like dogs to go united against another community? Why is that NATS and TANA holding their celebrations in the same city and same weekend, dividing the local communities? Looks like TANA and NATS can not co-exist, in which case how come they can work together to defeat another community. Is this some kind of arrangement in convenience? If they can work so well together to defame and defeat an honorable person in Atlanta, why not they show it to their top bosses living in Florida and California, how to work together? I did not have any answers to my questions. Hope these people in Atlanta have.

Sincerely, Raju Kasarla