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Saloora village is on the state highway from Nizamabad in Telangana to Nanded in Maharashtra. This is the last village of Telangana on this route. Manjira, a tributary of Godavari river, is around 2 kilometers from Saloora. There is a tall bridge connecting the two states. The sand available in Manjira river is of finest quality and I remember that it shines and reflects like diamond in the summer days. Unfortunately, it is being mined by the sand mafia for use as building material.There is a Shiva temple in the village, which receives daily puja and archana. On the occasion of Mahashivaratri festival, wood is burnt and a red hot coal pyre is made in the night and the villagers walk on the red hot coal and nobody feels the heat. I myself walked on the pyre many times. Next day in the evening, there will be wrestling competitions. Festival of colors- Holi is also celebrated here with much enthusiasm and fervor and there will be a wrestling competition in the evening again. Whenever there was a famine or dry spell, the villagers of Saloora use to celebrate a unique festival of sacrificing goats, sheep and buffaloes. There were some people, specially trained personnel called potarajus to chew off and separate the head of a young sheep or goat from the body with teeth. This is worth seeing. The renowned journalist Ms Nalini Singh picturised the festival and telecasted on Doordarshan, may be a couple of decades back.
The title of the film was 'You Can In Nizamabad'. There is a very old government school called Z P H S Saloora, having classes up to matriculation. Many of the children passed out from the school are now settled abroad. Of late, it has been observed that the condition the school building is pathetic and there are no required number of rooms to accommodate all the classes and there is no sufficient furniture. It is very disturbing and appalling to learn that Head Masters are going to the extent of helping the students to resort to copying in the examination to get good results. This is mainly due to the attribution of the bad results to Head Master and he is being peanlised or bad results in the matriculation. There is a lift irrigation project built on the banks of Manjira river, which supplies water for the irrigation of the fields that do not have supply source from the water tanks of the village. This made the village farmers condition better than what it was a decade back. Most of the farmers cultivate commercial crops like soybean, paddy, bengal gram, cotton, maize, etc. Unfortunately, a section of the villagers are not paying the water charges for maintaining the pumping station and paying the electcity or diesel bills. State bank of India has established the branch in this village.
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