American Dream Stolen Part I: Mr. Reddy

Mr. Kotha Govarhdan Reddy was murdered in his store last Tuesday and his family's American Dream was stolen.

Mr. Kotha Govarhdan Reddy was a merchant out near Beulah in District 1.  He bought a small convenience store that was run down and not doing well, and he turned it around.  He cleaned it up on the inside, spent a lot of money installing new tanks and a new canopy system so he could sell gas.

And he worked.  All the time.

I drive by his store nearly every day on the way home from work, and over the last year or so I noticed an interesting trend...one that I liked.

His gas was always 10-12 cents cheaper per gallon than his nearby competitors (Shell and Tom Thumb at Blue Angel and Mobile Hwy.)  Smart strategy--lower the prices well below your competition to drive traffic to the store, then make sales of other higher-margin items to the new gas customers!  Loss-leader.

So I started buying my gas at his store, and eventually I would go inside and buy lottery tickets, soda, snacks, beer, or an occasional newspaper.  His store was immaculately clean.  I mean it was incredibly clean.  And his prices were very good on an array of items.

He also had a game in his store that brought me back to my youth and that I hadn't seen anywhere else locally:  You insert a quarter and it pops out on a platform with other quarters  that moves back and forth--with the object being to position your coin drop so that your quarter is in the front of the others such that it would push more quarters (and cash) over a ledge and down a chute for the game player to collect.  As a kid growing up in Japan I used to play that game with 10 yen pieces.  You rarely win at it, but it was a cool game.

One day as I walked out of the store (the game was near the door) I asked him "Hey, is this game even legal?"  To which he quipped "As long as nobody tells the county commissioners..."

He didn't talk much, we had small talk on several occasions.  I told him I liked his gas prices, and he would just smile.

I noticed he was always working though.  Always.  He was a hard worker that was becoming more


and more successful.  Some days I wouldn't be able to get a spot at the pumps because his gas business was taking off--so I'd end up having to buy gas down the road at the competition.

One evening when I stopped in  I asked him-"Do you work all the time?"  He said he worked nights and he "had other employees that worked days."

The thing was, though, that when I stopped in on Saturday Mornings to get gas and lotto tickets--it was he who was working, not other employees.  I really respected his work ethic.

So this past Tuesday when I heard the very tragic news that Mr. Reddy was killed in a botched robbery attempt--it was a total gut-punch.  Why?  Why kill an innocent man that is just trying to work to improve his family's way of life?  And he was providing a valuable community service with his store to boot--good products at good prices.

As the story continues to unfold about the incident--heartbreaking details about Mr. Reddy's family have come to light--including the fact that he was scheduled to go back to India to look for a new school for one daughter and celebrate the wedding of another.  Apparently this trip back to India was to happen the very week he was murdered.  Now that family is shattered and Mr. Reddy's American Dream has been stolen.

What a sad, horrible, and senseless end of a man's life and theft of his American Dream.

The community of Beulah will hold a fundraiser rally for Mr. Reddy at Beulah Park on Saturday, March 2nd  from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM and a number of fundraising efforts have been launched to help this family.  A Facebook site has been started to assist in marshaling these efforts