Karri Sriram: The Editor Who Saw Through Me
Some people walk into your life quietly, without fanfare, and yet shift its course forever. Karri Sriram was that kind of person for me.
As Resident Editor at Deccan Chronicle’s Hyderabad bureau, Sriram possessed a rare editorial gift—he could see beyond the surface. Where others saw my restlessness as a distraction, he saw it as a drive. Where they flinched at my sharp tongue—especially my unapologetic trolling of KCR, KTR, and the BRS machinery—he saw a journalist who grasped the pulse of Telangana politics.
He didn’t just tolerate my fire; he wanted to redirect it. He urged me to leave the desk behind and step into the field, to channel my instincts and experience into stories that mattered. But more than urging—he believed. And that belief had a profound effect: it made me think, too. For the first time, I saw myself not just as a commentator but as a reporter. Not just someone who watched the news unfold, but someone who could shape it.
And yet, here’s the ache that lingers: I never made that leap.
Despite clocking in at Deccan Chronicle since September 7, 2011, I never filed the stories he was waiting to read. I stayed behind the desk, in the comfort zone of commentary and critique, while he moved on to shape narratives for the Telangana government as Director of Media.
This photo was taken on his last day at DC. He was stepping into a new chapter. I remained in mine, pages unturned.
Some debts can’t be repaid. Some expectations go unmet. But some influences never fade. Karri Sriram taught me that good editors don’t just edit copy—they edit lives. Even if we’re too stubborn, too scared, or too slow to let them finish the job.
I write this book as someone who was always “poor, hungry, restless”—but maybe never hungry enough to take the leap he offered. That’s on me, not him.
Thank you, Sriram sir, for seeing something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself.
Excerpted from my forthcoming book, PHR (Poor, Hungry, Restless)
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