From being son of a police constable to becoming the Cabinet Minister of a state to join the mosquito ridden barracks of the Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad, the mining baron and the former Karnataka Minister Mr Gali Janardhan Reddy has made a long journey, though it never looked that much tedious as it may now.

From relaxing in a Rs.2.5 Cr worth pure golden chair to join the bandwagon of under trials in the dirty and unhygienic jail premises, the transformation for the mafia don has come from a bolt from the blue.

It was really sudden. Early morning, he was in his palace in Bellary and by the evening he was in the midst of criminals who included murderers and rapists.

Ferocious as he was even at the time of his arrest by the CBI sleuths, Janardhan reddy was helpless except for saying that, “I used to fly for lunch from Bellary to Bangalore but now you kept me in the dirty premises.”

Janardhan reddy could have imagined that he would cradle in a golden chair and that became true. He must have imagined that he would become a king maker and that also became true. He must also have dreamt that no one would dare to touch him and jail him despite his indictment by the Supreme Court and Karnataka Lok Ayukta which exposed his illegal mining empire which he built unabashedly and imprudently but that boomeranged.

We hear he asked for a cot in the jail to sleep but the jail superintendent Mr Keshav Naidu told him there were no instructions to treat him the way he wanted. What all he ate was tasteless daal, veg curry and rice for his first dinner in the jail last night like all other prisoners.

This morning too, he was served with kichidi which he had never attempted even when he suffered huge losses in his chit fund business. But that is the dynamics of life which produces extremities for any one and the unscrupulous mining mafia don is no exemption from this rule. He has just begun his tedious journey and no one knows where and when the journey will end for him.