We, The Jonnalagaddas: Six Generations

 

We, The Jonnalagaddas:

  Six Generations

Introduction

Though there are three Jonnalagadda villages in the Andhra region, two in the Guntur district and one in the Krishna district, I presume that our genealogy begins from the third one. Maybe our ancestors migrated to Avanigadda from Jonnalagadda, a village of the same district, for livelihood.

The First Generation

I could trace our pedigree from the first quarter of the 18th century only.

Sriramulu was our great-great-grandfather, and Nagamma was our great-grandmother.

We with the surname Jonnalagadda are Vaidiki, Velanadu Brahmins of the Kaundinyasa Gothra (clan). 

I have no idea about the exact number of children he had. But his two sons Bhushaiah and Lakshmi Narayana were on record.

Second Generation

Bhushaiah and Lakshmi Narayana were our grandfathers. While Bhushaiah had inherited large tracts of fertile land from his father at Challapalli, Machilipatnam, Krishna district, my grandfather Lakshmi Narayana had not got his due share in the ancestral property.

Though he was advised to approach a court of law to claim his rightful share in the ancestral property, he was too proud to beg for his share in the property. He thought that his older brother Bhushaiah should have given his share of the property out of brotherly love.

Lakshmi Narayana, our grandfather, had a great passion for the classical dance art of Kuchipudi. This dance art came in handy for him to eke out his livelihood to support a large family of a wife and six children. He taught Kuchipudi dance art to devadasis (temple dancers). Though he lived in the Avanigadda village, he toured the nearby villages like Mellamarru and Kodali to give dance lessons to the temple dancers.

He insisted on the devadasis that they should learn the dance items from Sri Krishna Lila Tarnigini in a complicated and dedicated way. They were taught to dance with their feet on either side of a bronze plate with water to the brim. The skill of the dancer depended on dancing on the borders of the metal plate without spilling the water on the stage.

I was given to understand that my grandfather, who had a handsome figure, maintained a strong character, though some of the beautiful devadasis lost their hearts to him. He was content with a monthly fee of three rupees and some provisions like pulses and rice.

As a purohit (priest), he also officiated in rituals like house-warming ceremonies etc.

He was a stage artist too and played the roles of comedians. He was noted for his role as a comedian in the court of the French governor Charles Joseph Patissier de Bussy-Castelnau,  who destroyed the Bobbili fort. The audience, especially the groundlings, whistled ‘once more’ for his obscene dialogue, the governor demanding a harlot and sumptuous food every day.

The Third Generation        

Lakshmi Narayana had six children, five sons, Lakshmi Narasimham, Sriramulu, Nageswara Rao, Satyanarayana and Venkateswara Rao, and adaughter, Rukmini.

Our eldest paternal uncle, Lakshmi Narasimham, was a clerk to a lawyer. He qualified himself as a commercial correspondent and bookkeeper. He had a short stint as a subcontractor and incurred heavy losses

Nageswara Rao and Venkatalakshmi

My father Nageswara often told me that his older brother played Shakesperean roles. The complete works of Shakespeare in small font, from which he byhearted the dialogues, is still with me in a brittle condition.

He was a gourmand, and even on Saturday night when he was supposed to fast in the name of Lord Venkateswara and take only fruits in small quantities, he would eat at least ten black gram cakes. Then he would drink a long tumblerful of milk and belch, though he was a diabetic.

On that fateful day, he visited a hair-cutting saloon as usual. After the cutting of the hair was over, he asked the barber to cut the hair in the nostrils of his nose. But the barber’s scissors cut the soft tissue of the nostrils unfortunately, and the tissue began to bleed profusely.

Soon the nose was infected and began to swell due to his diabetes.

My father was a qualified doctor by then. He rushed his older brother to the municipal dispensary and treated him. Despite the best medical care provided to him, he succumbed to the incurable infection. 

Sriramulu was the second son of Lakshmi Narayana. He 

had been a school teacher and started his life with a salary of twenty-five rupees a month.

He was a good drama artiste too and was acclaimed for his role of a widowed sister-in-law who derived sadistic pleasure in torturing her brother’s wife. He was also a diabetic and died in his late sixties due to a carbuncle on his back.

My father Nageswara Rao, a physician by profession, was the third son of Lakshmi Narayana, who rose from rags to riches. He settled down in Madras. He died a natural death in his early eighties.

The fourth son of Lakshmi Narayana was Satyanarayana, who was rather mentally deranged. One day his mental illness was discovered when he was giving a serious lecture on a lesson to an electric pole. He was also seen smashing the glass frames of photographs on the wall of the hall. My father treated him successfully.

He was attracted to a group of Aghoris when they visited Machilipatnam. He begged the Shakti worshippers in the crematorium to initiate him into the worship of Mother Kali.

They warned the young man that this kind of worship would be complicated, as Mother Kali might test his power of self-control. But he was obstinate. The supreme guru of the team of Aghoris pitied him and initiated him into the worship of Kali.

It was fine with him when the Goddess appeared to him in his dreams as a ten-year-old girl and played with him.

But his concentration was disturbed when she began to appear in his dreams as a beautiful young girl with alluring looks.

He stopped worshipping her and was attracted to her sexually. He gave up all rituals and began to roam around the town like a mad person in search of his dream girl.

Again, my father cured him of his hallucinations by treating him with a combination of allopathic and Ayurvedic drugs.

The last one among the sons was Venkateswara Rao, who was an Ayurvedic doctor and a fun-loving person. The moustache of one of his patients looked like that of a cat. When the patient visited his clinic, he winked at my father and observed in chaste Sanskrit, 'Hey sodhara, bidala smasru agachhati', which means that the patient with the cat moustache has come. He laughed and told the patient that the Sanskrit word meant a ‘good person'.

He also studied Amara Kosha, the Sanskrit dictionary, to some extent. He used to embarrass a swamiji during religious discourses by asking questions in Sanskrit. The swamiji begged my uncle behind the curtains to speak in Telugu only since he did not know Sanskrit. My uncle enjoyed the swamiji’s discomfiture very much. He was such a font of fun. He had a sudden death due to cerebral thrombosis in his early seventies.

Lakshmi Narayana’s sixth and last child was a daughter, Rukmini. I was deeply attached to Umamaheswaram among all her children, whose hobby was creative writing like mine. God claimed him to be His own when he was barely sixty years old.

The Fourth Generation

Lakshmi Narasimham had a daughter and a son, Janaki and Sankara, respectively. Janaki was married decently. But Sankara died an early death in his early twenties due to the health complications which arose due to the amputation of his leg. On a tragic day, he kicked a knife with a wooden base (katthipeeta in Telugu and aruvamani in Tamil) on the floor of the kitchen. When he sustained a deep cut, he pressed the wound with rice bran instead of seeking treatment from a doctor. Again, my father tried in vain to save his life. He was brought to Madras and admitted into the government general hospital. But by then, the leg was dangerously infected. The surgeons at the hospital told my father that the leg had to be amputated from the foot to the knee joint. He returned to Machilipatnam with the amputated leg and died soon, possibly due to juvenile diabetes.

Sriramulu had three children: Lakshmi Narasamma, Janaki, alias Chanti, and Hanuman. All three were no more by now.

Nageswara Rao (the blogger’s father) had seven children – Janakiram, Narayana Rao, Lakshmi Narasimha Rao, Manga, Vijaya Lakshmi, Sumathi and Madhusudhana Rao. Now, Manga, Narayana Rao and Vijaya Lakshmi were no more.

Satyanarayana had two daughters. His wife was a cook and supported the family with her meagre income. While the elder daughter disappeared from the town mysteriously, the younger one eked out her living by begging after a broken marriage. All four died a forlorn death in their eighties.

Venkateswara Rao had five children – two daughters and three sons: Sujatha, Sulochana, Lakshmi Narasimha Rao, Santharam and Muralikrishna. Lakshmi Narasimha Rao died due to cardiac arrest in his early fifties.

Fifth Generation

Janakiram has three sons: Venkata Nageswara Sarma, Krishna Kishore and Srikanth.

Narayana Rao has two children – a son and a daughter: Sridhar and Sri Sudha.

Sri Sudha and
Uppuluri Venkateswara Rao

I, the blogger, have two sons, Sivakumar and Vishnuvardhan. 

Madhusudhana Rao has a son and daughter, Krishna Praveen and Sravani, respectively.

Sumathi has three children, Madhavi, Sandhya and Prasanth.

Sridhar and Pallavi

Please pardon me for stepping out of the timeline for the time being. I will return to the mainstream shortly.

 We Jonnalagaddas entered into matrimonial alliances with reputed surnames as Yadavalli, Malladi, Bulusu, Pillalamarri, Maddur, Sishtla, Chitta, Uppaluri, Pisupati etc. My grandfather Lakshmi Narayana paid four hundred rupees KANYASULKAM (dowry to the bride), and Janakamma was married to him when she was four years old. My grandmother's surname was not available.

Vishnu Vardhan and Sharada

Sriramulu arranged the marriage of his daughter Lakshmi Narasamma with Malladi Ramamurthi, a well-established gentleman of Anandatheertha Agraharam in Guntur town. The alliances of his other two children were unknown.

Among Lakshmi Narasamma’s children, her son Malladi Venkeswara Sarma alias Venkati, now in his late seventies, was a highly successful person, holding many posts in the government and private sector as well, and has been a good friend of mine.

 My father, Nageswara Rao, tied the nuptial knot with Venkata Lakshmi, who was the nine-year-old daughter of Kuchibhotla Ramaseshaiah, a school teacher and purohit. By the time my father married my mother, it was the market of the bridegrooms, and my father was paid a grand dowry of six hundred rupees and a silver vessel as a customary gift to my paternal aunt Rukmini, called 'AADAPADUCHU LAMCHANAM' in Telugu.

Venkateswara Rao married Susila, the elder sister of Yadavalli Chakradhara Rao, and had five children – Sujatha, Sulochana, Lakshmi Narasimha Rao, Santharam and Muralikrishna. Lakshmi Narasimha Rao and Santharam had no male issues.

Santharam and Mrs Santharam

They have two daughters each. But Muralikrishna has a son and a daughter.

In the fourth generation of our Jonnalagaddas, we again entered into a matrimonial alliance with the Yadavallis. when my younger sister Sumathi was given in marriage to Yadavalli Madan Mohan.

Nageswara Rao’s elder son, Janakiram, married his maternal cousin Anasuya, the eldest daughter of Kuchibhotla Venkatapaiah. Younger son Narayana Rao (who was no more now) married Surya Varalakshmi, daughter of Dr Sarva Adisesha Sarma.

The fourth son, Madhusudhana Rao. married Venkata Krishna Bharathi, daughter of Sishtla Sitaramaiah, an astrologer at the royal court of Bobbili.

Now I return to the timeline again.

Janakiram has three sons, Venka Nageswara Sarma, Krishna Kistore and Srikanth. Venkateswara Sarma has two daughters, and Krishna Kishore has a son and daughter, Manikanta and Niharika. Srikanth has three daughters.

Narayana Rao has a son Sridhar and daughter Sri Sudha. Sridhar  has two  daughters, Maya and Arya.

Anvita and Ananya

My two sons, Sivakumar and Vishnu Vardhan married Padmaja, daughter of Cherukuri Muralikrishna, and Vishnu Vardhan was wedded to Sarada, daughter of Tirumala Srinivasulu. Both my sons have two daughters each – Shruti, Swetha, Anvita and Ananya, respectively.

Sravani and her sister

Sixth Generation

In the sixth generation of our Jonnalagaddas, Muralikrishna’s son and Krishna Kishore’s son Manikanta are the only ray of hope for continuing our pedigree further since all other Jonnalagaddas of the sixth generation are girls. Their surnames are bound to change when they get married to boys of other surnames. 

I pray to God for a male issue to Muralikrishna’s son and Manikanta’s son so that the seventh generation of our Jonnalagaddas will continue when they get married, sooner or later.

So far, this is our genealogy in a nutshell. My failing memory might have left some names of our kith and kin and their achievements among our Jonnalagaddas. If such forgotten people send me their biographical details, I shall insert them humbly. 

The Jonnalagaddas of Vaidiki Velanadu Brahmins of Kaundinyasa gothra are not to be confused with those of the Haridasa gothra of the same surname and sect. 

 My First Photograph

The Blogger's First
 Photograph

Our house was enveloped in a festive atmosphere. Everybody in the house was busy. Our father was telling time and again, “Chimbi, get ready, quick.” Our manservant Balakrishnan was also running here and there, calling me, “chinna saami seegram wango" (little sir, come quick)

My mother was also running after me to catch me for a head bath, which I tried to avoid as far as possible because the sheekai shampoo with which my mother washed my long hair irritated my eyes.

She caught hold of me at last and dragged me into the bathroom, though I struggled to get free.

She dried my hair and plaited my hair in the front of my head and left the remaining hair loose at the nape of my neck. She decorated colourful flowers on my plaited hair.

Next it was the job of Balakrishnan and his sister Radhqa to dress me up. I was put into black half-knickers, and the tapes fastened across my shoulder so that the knickers would not slip down.

It was that memorable day when I was to be photographed for the first time in my five years of life. I had to be photographed on that day at any cost because we were to visit Tirupati for my tonsuring ceremony before having a darshan of Lord Venkateswara. Of the seven holy hills. 

My older brothers Janakiram and Narayana Rao, who were fourteen and twelve years of age by then, were also dressed in their best clothes.

My father ordered Balakrishnan to lock the doors properly and took out our Baby Austin car from the garage.

We trooped to Vadivelu Photo Studio in Pondy Bazar in our car.

The photographer of the studio accorded us a royal welcome. He seated me on a wooden seat and enveloped himself in a huge black cloth. "Smile!" he screamed from the black mask.

I gave an ear-to-ear smile displaying my uneven teeth, some of which had recently fallen.

The photographer must have been shocked. Maybe he saw the gateway of a huge cave with scattered little boulders when I opened my mouth. “Little sir” hold your mouth as tight as possible," he cried impatiently from the black mask.

I was aware that I looked ugly with a wide smile. 

I pressed my lips together as tightly as possible.

It was a five-minute nightmare.

After our return from the photo studio, my little brain was tormented with the thoughts of the outcome of my photo. I could neither eat well nor sleep well. Three days elapsed with that state of mind.

Finally came the day I had been waiting for.

After our return from Tirupati, I was happy to see my first photograph, which came out good.

Looking at my photograph with pride, I gave a wide-open-mouthed laugh.

 Our Alcoholic Servant Murugan

Murugan was the black sheep among our servants Annasaami, his wife Govindammal, their son Balakrishnan and his sister Radha. Balakrishnan married Radha’s daughter Chinnaponnu, his niece.

The boozer servant in question, Murugan, was married to Radha. Murugan was not our regular servant. He was an odd-job servant.

Our father built a big hut in the large courtyard of our house where all our servants lived.

Murugan used to drink a lot when he was off his job. Quarrels used to take place when Murugan was in an inebriated condition.

Our father had not bothered usually about the din they would make then. But our father would shout at Murugan if he had turned up for any job when drunk.

When our father wanted him to get lost and not to turn up again, he would weep like a woman. He would show his belly and say, “Vaithu mele adikade, Saami… Muduvu mele adi, Saami. (Sir, don’t hit my stomach. Hit on my back).

Our father’s heart melted down immediately. He would take pity on Murugu and deliver a long sermon to him about the evils of drinking.

Our father’s sermon would not last long. Soon he would fall into his bad ways again.

One day my father summoned him to do an errand. He was inebriated as usual. Before my father began his usual sermon about the evils of drinking, Murugal collapsed at my father’s feet. He was panting for breath. 

My father was alarmed at his health condition. He did not waste a single minute. He took out his Baby Austin car and seated him on the back seat, his mother Govindammal and wife Radha sitting beside him, weeping.

My father rushed him to the government. general hospital opposite to the Madras Central Station. My father spoke to the hepatologist there and got Murugan admitted into the hospital.

Murugan's health condition deteriorated day by day despite the best treatment being provided at the hospital.

One day an ambulance brought him home from the hospital. His kith and kin were crying inconsolably. Our father was handed over the discharge summary of the patient by Balakrishnan, Murugan’s brother-in-law, where the hepatologist said the patient in question was terminally ill and there was progressive failure of his liver due to excessive drinking. “Doctor saar, en magan pozhakka maatenaa. Asupathiri doctor sonnar (Doctor, sir, the hospital doctor said that my son will not live)," Govindammal cried.

My father sympathised with Murugan’s mother and wife. But his sympathy did not stop at formal consolation or a few rupees of money. He sat on the brittled ancient Ayurvedic textbooks, stuffed in an almirah in his study.  

The next day, he ordered Balakrishnan to dig a four-foot pit in the backyard of our house and incinerated some herbs in it. After the PUTAM was over, he treated Murugan with those Ayurvedic herbs. At the same time, he had taken care to administer the prescribed allopathic drugs too.

Two months passed by. Murugan began to put up weight. A month later he could walk briskly.

One day after his rebirth he touched my father's feet and promised that he would never touch spirits again. He kept his word. My father was very pleased with him and appointed him a full-time servant.

Annasaami, Govindammal, Balakrishnan, Chinnaponnu, Radha and Murugan served our family till my parents passed away. Their memories linger on to date.

 My Sister Turns Into a Crow

Jonnalagadda Vijaya

Please don’t raise your brow either in disbelief or in scepticism. Yes, my younger sister turned herself into a crow. But don’t jump to the last paragraph and spoil the tempo of my narration. Please hold your breath in suspense till the last. It is a short piece only.

My sister Vijayalakshmi was born a healthy baby and grew up into a lively girl till she was two years old.

She ate well and played like any other girl of her age till then.     Thenceforth, her life began to take strange turns. On a bad day she refused to eat cooked rice. When she was spoonfed cooked rice, she did not open her mouth. She said that it was not a morsel of cooked rice but a swarm of ants.

No amount of logic could convince her little brain that it was cooked rice only.

My father, being a doctor, took her to child psychologists They tried their best to diagnose her problem and treat it in vain.

Then my father took her to the Parthasarathi Temple in Triplicane, Madras, on my mother’s suggestion, and met the chief priest there. He explained to him about the problem of my little sister.

The priest recited some mantras and tied a talisman around her neck. He also advised on Ayush Homam (a ritual for longevity).

Later there was considerable improvement. Now she stopped seeing swarms of ants in the cooked rice and started eating as usual.

But alas! She began to grow into a dullard, contrary to our expectations. Her learning skills were impaired. She always stuttered in her speech.

Her formal schooling was stopped at fourth grade as a result of these problems. She was very lean and short too.

To add to her woes, she got primary complex (childhood tuberculosis) when she was twelve years old which was successfully treated by my doctor brother. 

But in spite of all these shortcomings, she developed into a practical woman. She was very shrewd in day-to-day affairs. She counted currency notes correctly and bombarded the maidservant when the latter scrubbed the vessels clumsily. She was also very alert when the milk vendor tried to mislead her about the monthly account. 

My parents tried in vain to secure a matrimonial alliance for her. But, unfortunately, her horoscope did not match tthat of any groom. Yet, the astrologers who scrutinised her horoscope assured my parents that my sister would live a decent life and there were even chances of her going abroad.

She developed an affinity with my brother's family and reared their children as her own. She went to England twice to spend her time with my brother’s family.

But times changed as she began to grow old. She developed rheumatoid arthritis, which entered into her bloodstream and gradually found its way into her heart. The rheumatologist who treated her said her days were numbered.

This disease gave her uncontrollable stomach aches. The gastroenterologists, without bothering about her rheumatoid arthritis,  diagnosed that she suffered with gastric problems and treated her accordingly. 

After a short struggle and convulsions, she breathed her last. When life was about to ebb out of her body, she enquired about the welfare of my late brother’s children feebly. These were the last words she uttered. 

I performed her last rites with tear-filled eyes.

Now I come to the beginning of this piece. when I said that my sister turned herself into a crow. Yet it was true. In Hindu religion, on the 12th day of death ceremony and all subsequent death ceremonies on each annual death day, the departed soul takes the form of a crow (vayasa rupena) to partake the offering of a moong dhal (green gramme) morsel.

Now, on the day of the death ceremony of the year, a crow, considered to be the soul of my sister, would appear at the door of the house where my late brother's family resides and partake of the offering of a morsel of moong dhal.

Then the crow would gaze at the family members of my late brother, shedding tears. The ornithologists say that crows do not have tears of emotion. But this crow is not an ordinary crow. It's my sister.

 My Brother Narayana Rao

DR JL Narayana Rao

My mother delivered him during the last week of the seventh month of her pregnancy.

  He was very weak when he was a day-old baby and often gasped for breath. Our grandmother Janakamma always prayed to God for his long life.   

  Right from birth to three years, he faced many health issues, but he overcame them from his fourth year.

Though born in Madras during the early 1940s, he studied at our maternal uncle Sharma’s house in Machilipatnam till he completed his fifth grade.

He returned to our parental home in Madras to continue his studies from sixth grade at the corporation school at Nungambakkam, Madras. He studied diligently and was promoted to seventh standard. But he became a backbencher later and was detained in the eighth standard.

My father was very confident about the educational talent of my brother. When he learnt about the detention, he was furious. He rushed to the school and entered into a verbal duel with the headmaster.

  My father challenged him that he would make his son (my older brother) get through matriculation in two years with high marks.

While the ferocious war of words was going on between my father and the headmaster, my older brother was making rounds of the school premises on his old bicycle in a carefree manner.

My father called out to my brother and asked him to go home.

My father counselled my brother to study hard at home and get through the matriculation with high grades. My brother nodded humbly and studied hard.

When the results were published, my brother’s registered number was not to be seen in the third division of the column of the news paper.

My father was first disappointed. Still, he had hope about the success of his son. Even the number could not be seen in the second division. Then my father checked for the number in the first division. There's the number.. My father’s joy knew no bounds. He never expected my brother to be so intelligent..

My father was delighted. He gave my brother ten rupees to celebrate with his friends on his success.

His academic graph shot up thereafter. He studied pre-university at Pachaiyappa College and later joined in the medical course of M.B.B.S at Stanley Medical College.

Generally speaking, it is very tough to get through the anatomy exam in the second year of the M.B.B.S. degree course. But my brother passed through the exam, scoring high grades.

My father was so elated that he arranged a grand party for brother’s classmates on the terrace of our house.

My brother was proud to say that Parimalan, the adopted son of  late Annadurai, the founder of the DMK party, was his classmate.

  He was a victim of linguistic politics when he wanted to join the government medical service of the Madras state.

 The interview board, which consisted of a member of the legislative assembly of the state along with the medical fraternity, asked my brother whether he wa a Marathi or a Kannada or a Telugu, as his name was suffixed with 'Rao'. He even suggested why he shouldn’t seek medical employment in his native state.

Though he was appointed as a doctor at the Madras Government General Hospital and later at Chengalput Government Hospital, it was only on a temporary basis.

He was dedicated to medical ethics to the core. Once a patient demanded a false certificate for medical leave when he worked at an Employees State Insurance Dispensary (ESI) on the beach road in Madras. The patient even offered my brother money. 

But my brother was very honest. He had the patient necked out by an attendant.

The patient did not go away. He lurked at a corner of the lane, leading to the dispensary with a knife in his hand.

When my brother left the dispensary for home, the patient threw the knife at my brother, which hit him at the back of his head. The knife had almost touched the skull but did not pierce through. It was a providential escape for him.

The passersby on the lane rushed him to the General Hospital, opposite to the Madras Central Station.

A criminal case of assault was registered by the police, but the culprit was at large for a long time. Nobody knew what had happened to the culprit..

The government then transferred my brother to the Yercaud (a small hill area) government hospital in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu. There also, he was forced to work on a temporary basis only.

My brother was fed up with the murky politics of this kind and set up a private practice at Wallajabad, eight miles away from Kanchipuram.

Though he had a roaring practice and patients flooded his clinic, he had a great passion for research in rheumatology. He learnt that England was the right place for him for his research.

Shortly he found himself in a full-fledged hospital in Wolverhampton, England. 

Later he worked in Devonshire Royal Hospital, Buxton, and Hartlepool General Hospital, Bishop Auckland Hospital and Burton-on-Trent Hospital till he reached his late fifties, conducting extensive research in rheumatology. He endeared himself to the chronic patients as ‘Dr Jonnalagqadda' at whatever hospital he worked in in England.

Now I will go back in my narration to about three decades earlier. 

He grew up into a fair, short and plumpy boy, unlike me, who was rather tall, lean and dark-complexioned. He used to tease me with 'Aye, BB', which means 'Black boy'. He said that it meant a good boy. He continued to call me that until one day I had learnt the real meaning of the word and hit him with a measuring scale.

In spite of these small fights, my brother pampered me like a little prince since I was seven years younger to him. I took it as an advantage, and whenever I hit him, our parents supported me and scolded my brother not to irritate me. 

He had never let go of a single paisa which was due to him. Once our paternal uncle Satyanarayana, notorious for taking loans but never repaying them, took one rupee from my brother's pocket money as a loan. My brother kept on demanding that his loan might be repaid. But he did not oblige. Then my brother hit upon a plan. He stopped teaching him English. Then my uncle came to terms. He repaid the one-rupee loan and urged him to go to teach him English again. My uncle had no schooling. Hence, my brother had to teach him English.

  My brother told our father with a beaming face that he had recovered the loan amount of one rupee from my uncle.

Our father stared at my brother in disbelief. He observed humourously that my brother ought to have become a loan recovery agent for any bank with bad debts. 

He was a love boy even from his early teens. He used to pluck roses in our garden early in the morning and presented them to a fair girl nearby. He courted her thus for a year, but she was just friendly; that was all. So my brother’s romantic advances were in vain.

When my brother grew into a youth, he used to say with a chuckle that it was just a crush.

He married a fair girl who happened to be a distant relation after earning his medical degree. He had two children – a boy and a girl – who were married with children and settled abroad happily. 

Sometimes he was innocent as well. Once at a written general knowledge class in the fourth grade, he was asked who the village heads were. My brother answered that his grandfather and grandmother were the heads of the village.

He had a helping nature and always came to the rescue of the needy among our relatives. When we are all settled down in our lives with our families in different cities, I needed two hundred rupees urgently for a purpose. I wired him, who was in a different city, that I was in bad need of money. The next day, he sent me the required money by money order. But, by then, my purpose was served through some other source. So, I returned the money and thanked him. "See how honest my brother is," he remarked to my sister-in-law. 

Now I come back to my present narration. After working for long years in many hospitals in England, my brother toyed with the idea of getting a spacious flat constructed in Hyderabad to spend his remaining years peacefully..

But cruel fate willed otherwise.

He returned to Madras with his family and had a brief rest at my house and then proceeded to Kanchi to seek the divine blessings of the pontiff of Kanchi Sankara Peeth for the upcoming house-warming ceremony of his flat.

He was a diabetic and was expected to take care about his food timing. But he missed his breakfast and noon meals, because of his busy schedule that day.

While returning, he was to go down the staircase at Park Railway Station to catch a local train. While he was halfway through the steps, the sugar levels of his body suddenly dipped to zero, as a result of which he became unconscious. He fell down headlong, his forehead hitting the iron edge of a step hard. His frontal lobe bulged out, and his death was instant.

He left the material world without having a look at his dream flat in Hyderabad.

This was the sad end of my beloved older brother.

 My Father – Kind and Furious 

Dr. J. Nageswara Rao

One may think that my father was a mixture of opposites when I say that he was kind and furious. But he was not. He was kind to all except when his values – which he practised – were at stake, and then he flew into a rage.

During his student days, he rented a small portion which consisted of a kitchen and a room. This room served the purpose of a living room and a bedroom too in Aminjikarai, Madras. There were about twenty rented portions altogether in a large house.

The owner of the house was a middle-aged person named Subramanian. He often derived sadistic pleasure in harassing his tenants. None of the tenants dared oppose him as they feared his abusive mouth. 

 It was nine o'clock in the morning, and my father was getting dressed to go to the college. My mother was busy in the small kitchen cooking food and packing the lunch box for my father. Suddenly the tap water in the sink stopped. My mother was worried and stopped the cooking in the middle. She ran to my father in the room and told him that must have been the mischief of Subramanian.

  Subramanian used to close the main valve of the taps and enjoyed the plight of the hapless housewives.

My mother told my father sadly that she was unable to finish the cooking and pack his lunch box.

  My father was very hungry, and his hunger doubled his anger. “It’s o.k.," he said to my mother and  left the house for the medical college with a bundle of books under his arms.

My father was unable to focus on the professor's eloquent lecture during the crucial human anatomy class that day.

He informed his classmates about the incident and skipped the noon classes. Some of his friends assured him to stand by him to teach Subramanian a lesson.

When my father reached home, feeling ravenously hungry, Subramanian accosted my father in the front courtyard and gave out a villainous smile. “Pavam, onnum sapadamale college poyi vandiya. Ippu nalla pasikkada. (Poor guy, you went to college and returned without eating anything? You must be very hungry now.)

My father could no longer control his seething anger. He took his left shoe into his left hand. He caught hold of his short hair at the nape of Subramanian’s neck (pilaka in Telugu and kudimi in Tamil) and hit him hard on his face with the shoe.

  Subramanian soon began to bleed at his mouth. He ran into his kitchen and returned immediately with a knife with a wooden handle (katthipeeta in Telugu and aruvamani in Tamil) to slit my father’s throat.

But all of a sudden some five or six able-bodied classmates of my father rushed into the scene according to the plan hatched before. “Dare lay your hand on Nageswara Rao¹ You will be finished. They yelled at Subramanian, "Mind it."

He was instantly intimidated. He dropped his aruvamani and knelt. He folded his hands and said feebly, “Mannicchu saamee. Inimel kettavelai pannamatten (Sirs, pardon me; hereafter I will not resort to bad things).

That section of the house was occupied by my mother and father until he earned his A.L.I.M. medical diploma. 

Subramanian, the landlord of the house, had not bothered my parents thereafter.

My father runs his car over a bicycle

When my older brother Janakiram was sixteen years old, an auspicious day for his thread marriage (upanayanam) was fixed by our family priest.

The ceremony was a few days away and my father, Janakiram and I drove to the market in T. Nagar, Madras, in our Baby Austin car.

We were returning after buying the vegetables and provisions needed for the ceremony. When we were about to turn to the left and enter Usman Road from Pinjala Subramania Ayyar Street, a cyclist who was biking in front of our car indicated his right hand to turn to the right. But he went left, not as he signalled. The car hit the bicycle, and the cyclist fell on the road.

My father got down from the car and enquired, "Thank God, you’re not injured. But you might have sustained a shock due to the impact of the accident. I am a doctor. Put your bicycle aside and get into my car, I will give you some painkillers at my clinic.”

But my father’s kind words were met with rudeness.

"I don’t care whether you are a doctor or an actor," he yelled” I’ll file a police case against you.”

My father was aghast at his rough behaviour. Yet he was very patient with him. “O.K., you're welcome to file as many cases as you like against me. But remove your bicycle in front of my car. I have to hurry back home.”

But the cyclist was adamant. He did not remove the bike. “Come what may,” my father said angrily and got back into the driver’s seat, shifted the gear and pressed the accelerator hard.

My father’s car ran over the bicycle, and it was unrecognisable. 

A week later, my father was served with summons by a magistrate court in Madras. 

My father represented his case party-in-person without engaging a professional lawyer. 

The court provided the cyclist with legal aid, considering his poverty. The petitioner argued that he bled all over his body due to the injuries sustained in the accident. He accused that my father, though a doctor, of not having bothered to admit him into any hospital and went on his way.

When my father was called into the witness box, he questioned as to how the petitioner could have walked home if he were really injured grievously. 

Next, our manservant Balakrishnan, who was in the back seat of the car, said that the cyclist who was biking in front of the car indicated that he would turn to the left but turned right into Usman Road. 

After the magistrate was noting all the relevant points of the case, my father concluded his arguments by blasting the bomb that the electric post, at which the accident was said to have occurred, did not exist at all.

The sub-inspector, the sergeant and a constable who registered the case. were nonplussed at my father’s submission. 

The magistrate ordered the police to check the veracity of my father’s submission.

The police rushed to the accident spot and checked for the electric post in question. Evidently the electric post was far away from the accident spot. The police entered the electric post number wrongly.

The magistrate dismissed the case and reprimanded the police to behave themselves.

My father’s friends cautioned him that the police, who lost the case, would bear a grudge against my father and might implicate him in a false case.

Luckily the police had forgotten the case. Later. some of them visited my father’s clinic for treatment.

My father Always stuck to his guns

  My father always stood firm on what he had believed to be right. He never changed his opinions much.

He was a small-time tennis player at the Krishna Club (closed permanently in 2010, standing as a mute witness of its past glory of about a century), Machilipatnam.

One day when he was through the game, he tripped over and fell down. Soon he felt a shooting pain in his knee.

The X-ray revealed a small piece of the tibia was broken and dangling, touching the cartilage. Fellow doctors advised my father to rush to Madras to get it operated upon at the earliest. 

But my father dismissed the suggestion of surgery and argued that the small piece of the tibia would eventually be reduced to powder due to constant friction during the movement of the knee joint. But all of them were sceptical about my father’s perceived logic. 

But fortune favoured my father. The pain in the knee joint gradually subsided. A fresh x-ray showed no trace of the piece of the tibia. It might have become powder, as my father expected. 

Again, a party in person in high court

This is my father’s second incarnation as a party in person.

  My father was issued a notice by the government of Madras Presidency to pay excise duty, as the government thought that he mixed alcohol in Draksharishta and Dasamoolarishta, the Ayurvedic medicines manufactured by him

My father filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court, challenging the government order, and obtained the required legal permission to argue his case party in person without engaging a professional lawyer. 'An advocate, who later turned into a Congress party activist and became a Union minister, represented the government in the case,.

My father argued that he did not bring alcohol from outside and mix it in the said herbal medicines. He informed the honourable judge that the alcohol content in the herbal medicines concerned was autogenerated through the chemical reactions called in the parlance of chemistry 'anaerobic respiration' (in the absence of air) and 'aerobic respiration' (in the presence of air). 

While the case was halfway through, it so happened that my father came across it in the courtyard during recess. My father greeted him with a wide hi. The advocate also returned the smile and said, "Doctor, your argument is very powerful, though you are not a professional lawyer. You can avail of my legal advice if you need it.”

The father naturally and politely declined his offer. 

  My father won the case. To avoid being mistaken for the names of his competitors, he changed the name of his draksharishta to Vitone.

I also learned that a raja of an estate appeared in person to plead his case concerning a property. But the judge was annoyed during the raja’s argument and said that the raja was arguing his case ‘out of depth’. Then the raja understood what the learned judge meant, and took a professional lawyer.

So it obviously means that my father was the only petitioner in those days who argued his case party in person and won.

Refuses to be the co-producer of a film

My father’s classmate and renowned stage actor Dr. Raja Rao urged my father to invest Rs 50 thousand in his upcoming film "Puttlllu", in which he was the hero and Jamuna was the heroine. The film was an utter flop and my father thanked his stars for saving him from losing his hard-earned money in the cinema venture.  

Burns his research papers

My father had done extensive research and processed a formula to manufacture a herbal tablet for safe abortion even during the last week of the fifth month of pregnancy. He showed it to an Ayurvedic pharmaceutical company. The managing director of the company was so impressed with the formula that he offered my father Rs. One lakh for patent rights.

My father said he wanted some time. The next day he kept awake till midnight. He thought deeply about whether to sell the patent right or not. The next morning he arrived at a firm decision. He lit a match stick and burnt the research papers of the drug.

My mother and my two older brothers rushed into the living room on seeing the flames. My father told them that the drug in question might be misused by the youth to indulge in unbridled sex. So he consigned the papers of his laborious research to flames with a heavy heart!

Zero tolerance

Once my father caught a teenage boy while he was stealing mangoes in our garden. My father was enraged at the theft. He thought the boy ought to be taught a lesson; otherwise, he would grow up a burglar. He tied his hands with a rope and produced him at the a Police Station. My father told the sub-inspector what had happened. The S.I. took pity on the boy who was crying unconsolably. “Avan chinna payyandhaa..Pavam vidungo saar (He is a little boy). Poor fellow. Leave him, sir.

  “No, you must teach the boy a lesson," my father said and reversed his car.

The S.I. sent the boy away as soon as my father was out of sight.

  Thus, my father was kind to good people and stern with bad ones throughout his life.