Prayers in a Hyderabad temple for the well-being of Ramalinga Raju. (AP)

Hyderabad, Jan. 12: A night on a mat on the floor. Barefoot trip to the dirty toilet in the morning.

A long, pleasant conversation with fellow under-trial K. Venkateswara Rao, disgraced former chief of the collapsed Krushi Bank, but mood soon ruined by a lunch of watery dal, rice and aloo sabzi.

B. Ramalinga Raju got at the Chanchalguda jail just what he had asked for.

As he entered the jail on Saturday night after being grilled at the state police chief’s office since Friday, the disgraced Satyam boss had only one request for jail in-charge T. Newton. “He said he did not want VIP treatment. He wanted us to treat him as a common prisoner without the comforts of isolation, a bed or good food,” Newton said.

Whether the request sprang from remorse or a desire for sympathy is unclear, but ordinary treatment is what Raju would have got anyway, Newton said.

When Ramalinga and brother Rama Raju, former Satyam managing director, were brought to the jail, it was already past the dinner hour of 8pm. So the brothers from one of India’s richest families spent their first night in prison hungry, sharing a cell with three others, with only coarse blankets to keep them warm.

Since the duo are remand prisoners, they did not have to wear the jail uniform. Each was given a bed sheet, towel, glass, jug and a plate.

They slept under the rickety ceiling fan and a 100W bulb. The lights were switched off for a while on Ramalinga’s request but, in keeping with prison regulations, were switched on again.

Neither brother was in the mood to introduce himself to the cell mates, but almost all the 640 prisoners were awe-struck on Sunday morning to learn they had two more millionaires among them, jail sources said.

The first, Rao, brought back from abroad after years of manhunt following Krushi Bank’s collapse, spoke with Ramalinga for several hours, the sources added.

The Rajus’ three-cell barracks had just three toilets and the brothers had to share them with the 13 other inmates. Ramalinga chose to walk barefoot into the toilet.

“I heard him tell his brother, ‘the slippers will remain cleaner that way’,” a jail source said.

The Rajus, used to a breakfast of grape juice and malt, were served a sugary tea and coloured rice — known as “lemon rice” or pulihara — in the morning. An associate of the Rajus said the brothers always worked out in the morning. They had to be satisfied with a stroll in the jail compound in the evening.

After the vegetarian lunch, the Rajus had chicken and rice for supper, the usual Sunday fare. But since the jail library is closed on Sundays, Ramalinga’s request for books and magazines had to be turned down. He was given Telugu and English newspapers, whose headlines would have done nothing to improve his spirits.

Some of the Rajus’ relatives asked to meet them, as did a Telugu Desam MLA, but they were denied permission since there are no visiting hours on Sundays.

Jail doctors examined the brothers and declared them fit.

Late last evening, the duo were shifted from the under-trial block to single-prisoner cells in the hospital barracks.

Satyam’s former chief financial officer, V. Srinivas, was brought to the jail on Sunday evening and sent to one of the barracks without any contact with his ex-colleagues.