Before I proceed any further, I will pause to introduce the family to you! This is not just an introduction but also a commentary on the definition of family in those days, as exemplified by many from my parents’ generation. As a child grew up surrounded by hordes of aunties, uncles and cousins – some from the immediate family and mostly from the extended family. The consequences of so many uncles and aunties flitting in and out of my parents’ place had some consequences. You guys have to be patient until I come to that part!
I will start with my Mom’s side of the family. Ammamma (Rama Devi) and Tatagaru (Shiv Rao) had in all 10 children, the eldest being Balakrishna mamayya, followed by eight girls and the last one being a boy again, Deena mamayya. Of the eight girls, the eldest was Satyavathy ammakayi, followed by Prabha ammakayi, Shakunthala ammakayi, Nirmala ammakayi, Shantha ammakayi, my Mom (Sri Lakshmi), Suseela (Susi) Pinni and Navi Pinni. Phew! Off these two – Nirmala ammakayi and Deena mamayya did not survive childhood. In those days, a child who passes away was considered to become a “god”. Hence the family came to believe that Deena mamayya had become Veerabhadrudu and all the boys in the family were named after him – Dayal. So you have Deen Dayal bava, my Balakrishna mamayya’s son, Shankar Dayal, my Shantha ammakayi’s son, Narayana (Naren) Dayal, my very own brother, Saahil Dayal and Saaransh Dayal, my sons. We also have two Nirmalas in the family – Nimmi akka and Nimmi vadina!
If you became breathless and confused reading about my Mom’s family, brace yourself for my Dad’s family. We very fondly refer to them as the “cricket team”! They were in all 13 children born to my nanamma (Satyavathy) and tatagaru (Narayana). Just want to assure my blog followers that my nanamma Satyavathy is different from my Satyavathy ammakayi! The eldest son is Padmanabha Rao peddananagaru, followed by my Dad (Jagannadha Rao), Madhav babai, Subhadra, later named Nirmala atta (we call her Peddatta), Lalitha (Chinnatta), Mohan Lakshmi Narayana (Nalla babai), Murali babai, Udayani (Chantammalatta), Srinivas Rao (Chanti babai), Satyanarayana (Murthy babai), Bharathi atta, Shankar babai and Jhansi atta. It was not easy putting up the names and the sequence. You see, I don’t even know many of their birth names. While I knew Peddatta’s original name, because of the interesting story associated with it, I could not remember chinnatta’s name. I had to call up my Dad couple of times to get the birth names and most important the sequence. I strongly suspect that my Dad may be wrong at least in one instance. I recall my Mom always teasing him by asking him to give her the sequence and she used to take great pleasure in correcting him, when he used to go wrong, which is most often the case.
Cruel as it may sound, Nalla babai, is very dark-skinned and hence the household started referring to him as Nalla (Black in Telugu). My grandparents had a consanguineous marriage; hence the family had its share of congenital birth defects – Madhav babai, Nalla babai, Chantammalatta, Chanti babai, Bharathi atta and Shankar babai, were born with varied degrees of hearing impairment. My Mom was so petrified that her children would inherit this defect that she used to check our auditory function, quite often by snapping her fingers. She used to heave a sigh of relief the minute we responded.
With the kind of large family, I had, it is no surprise that we always had at least one babai or atta living with us. In our YMCA house, Shankar babai came to live with us and I have already told that ammamma was also living with us for good part of the year. I have a vague recollection of Murthy babai also coming to live/ visit us. You see Murthy babai is the black sheep of the family, with him getting into some kind of trouble or the other, ranging from girls to street fights. The only person who seemed to have any kind of hope and faith about him in the family was my Mom and that was true until she passed away. Then, of course came Chantammalatha.
Tatagaru (paternal) was an ayurvedic/ homeopathic doctor at Kakinada. He was practicing medicine and had good number of patients consulting him. However, for some reason, the money was not enough to provide for the large brood. So, the eldest sons of the family had to support the family both in cash and kind. Apart from the monthly money orders to the family at Kakinada, my parents have also become the caretakers for the younger siblings. The caretaking thing did not really work out, due to my Mom’s discipline. She put the Babais to the grind, for the exams and though they loved their chinnavadina more than they did their own mother, her obsession with their studies made them run helter skelter. No amount of coaxing, cajoling and threatening worked with the boys in the Chekka family, as they are not cut out for academics. None of them – except for Peddananagaru, Chanti Babai, Bharathi atta and Jhansi atta – made it past Matriculation and this includes my Dad, too.
One person I have to mention is Bullepamamma, Dad’s grandmother. The only thing I remember about her is her petite frame and the white glaxo blouse. However, I have a vivid recollection of her love and how proud she was of Dad and me. Dad was her favorite grandson and the love automatically transferred to me, his first born. Her favorite play with me was to ask me my name. When I said “Nayana Chekka”, she used to grab me and pinch my cheeks hard and say, “It is not Nayana Chekka, you are Bangaru (golden) Chekka”! She gifted me a pair dolls, carved out of black wood. She taught me how to wrap a sari around the female doll and a dhoti around the male doll. She also told me stories of how the Chekka children used to perform doll marriage and the entire street was invited for a sumptious wedding meal. Sometimes, these doll weddings were conducted on a grand scale, just as real wedding, with family and friends joining the festivities. I guess, in those days, this could be a reason for people to get to gether and catch up. She used to show me off to the neighbors and relatives as “chinnabbayi’s daughter”. It was very sad that Dad could not make it to her funeral. I do remember my parents being very sad for weeks on end, since they could not be with her when she breathed last. I guess, this could be one of the reasons that my parents decided to move back to Andhra, after a long stint in Orissa. Hold on, I am not yet finished with my Cuttack stories! This is just the family…
Hey Nayana! Your mother's family was then a girls sandwich! BTW, 'glasco' blouse it is, not glaxo, coming from Glasgow for the fine linen. Interesting - how do you keep track of the entire family on both sides? I have only my mother's large family to deal with, my father's was very small. Vadina has a quintessential existence in all large families and the younger siblings often related to her more than they related to their own brother. I also was a successful one at that!
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