Daijiworld Media Network - Chikkamagaluru (SP)

Chikkamagaluru, Jan 2: "After serving police department for ten years, I realised that I was not comfortable to work from the air-conditioned environs of the offices of the deputy inspector general and inspector general of police. When I expressed this feeling, Brother Siddhartha was the only one who gave me the moral courage to resign, duly promising that he would be there to support me. We two decided on my resignation," recalled former IPS officer, Annamalai. He was making an emotional and fond reference to his association with the late V G Siddhartha Hegde, founder of Cafe Coffee Day.

Annamalai had come to attend a programme arranged near Kuduregundi in Mudigere taluk in the district to unveil a bust of the late Siddhartha. Annamalai said that he had a discussion stretching to three and half hours in the chamber room of Siddhartha’s Cafe Coffee Day on this issue.

"I do not get satisfaction out of the fact that people open my car doors when I approach, and four others salute me. I yearned to return to my hometown, indulge in agriculture and live like an ordinary human being. I expressed this feeling to Siddhartha, and told him abouit my desire to change the way the common people live, for the better. Siddhartha inspired and encouraged me to leave my job, duly promising full support from his side," he added.

Annamalai said that the two had together decided even the date on which the resignation letter was to be typed and recalled that after he resigned, Siddhartha had called him from Mumbai. "He told me that it is very hard to leave a lucrative and respectable job and most decide against attempting it. He told me that people might brand me as a fool, but he knew what the purpose behind my resignation was. He is watching whatever I am doing here now, from above. He will always be with me. He guided me in the past and will continue to guide me by being by my side," he said.