With the dwellings going up to 300 now, it has so far produced scores of doctors, engineers, civil servants and professionals in many other fields.

Tucked in a remote corner of Warangal district in Telanagana, Kuravi has 25 huts. Before Independence, it had no name and was referred to merely as a ‘Samya thanda.’ Post-1947, it has acquired many names in rapid succession. Each time a dweller of the hamlet rose to some eminence, it acquired the nomenclature of his or her profession.

With the dwellings going up to 300 now, it has so far produced scores of doctors, engineers, civil servants and professionals in many other fields.

‘Doctor thanda’

In the early 1980s, Roop Lal became the first doctor from the habitation. The hamlet became ‘Doctor thanda’ and ‘Roopla thanda.’ After his brother-in-law became IAS officer, it came to be known as ‘Collector thanda.’ The names continue to inspire many across the district.

Unlike in other tribal hamlets, the habitants mainly focus on education.

“My great grandfather, Jalapathi Naik, studied up to fifth standard and worked as police officer in the Nizam government. He used to say even if you do not have food and clothes, wear a loin cloth and go to school,” Mr. Roop Lal, who inspired many children to become doctors from the hamlet, told The Hindu. The first generation of habitants from the hamlet went on to become government teachers and as their financial position improved, their children went for higher studies. The hamlet did not have a school for a long time and the children used to walk to Seerole or Kampalli villages, a distance of 3-4 km, through the dense forest.

A decade ago, villager elder Bhanoth Ramji Naik, 70, donated some land on which a primary school was started by the government. Mr. Naik preferred to do farming while his brothers are settled in good jobs – one as headmaster, doctor, college principal, the others serve the Indian Railways, and the State government. Among his children – two girls are engineering graduates, one son an orthopaedic surgeon, and another an IPS officer in Karnataka.

Mr. Naik says his father, Jalapathi, was an inspiration for them and their wards. “My father realised the importance of education. In those days of Nizam rule, a job in the Police Department was a much-sought-after one, and he wished to see all his children become police patels.”