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Apparently I am blessed (or cursed) with a prodigious memory for people and incidents in my life from my first childhood to the last.
My elder sister (just 2 years older to me) and my younger one (2 years younger) are amazed how I remember and recall all those incidents of which they have only a hazy memory. It happened when I sent them the story of my sorry predicament with Muthukur's tailor: Jaan Saheb:
They were thinking I was bluffing and that no such tailor ever existed. I told them to ask mom (92), and pat came the reply:
"Mother says she very well remembers Jaan Saheb: his shop was second from the bus-stand on the eastern side of the southern road"
So there is the DNA of it...
My mom has her own way of saying things like 'eastern side of the southern road'. When I was but a kid of 3 we were living in a village in our Nellore District, Buchi Reddy Palem. Apparently Father had a ten-year stint as a teacher there in two spells. And we were shifting from one rented house to another. And my mom always refers to these houses by the titles (not names) of her house-owners. Like the 'Reddy's house' (before I was born) and then the 'Nauluri's house' and then the 'Kalavalakolanu's house'. Don't be scared of that tongue-twister, Kalavalakolanu...it just means a lily-pond.
I was 3 when we were living in the 'Nauluri's house' which was a housing complex with 4 tenants and the owners. We had a common backyard in which there was a cemented well...the type with a fixed pulley round which goes a coconut fiber rope. One end of the rope is attached to a bucket in the well and the other to the hands of the puller.
Beside the well was a huge cement tank into which the servant-couple would pour the buckets of water they drew from the well. This tank was too deep for me to get into. And one evening when no one but the servants were around, I was playing with my hands dipped into the water in the well, I standing on the ground and bending full stretch, tiptoe.
And suddenly I overreached and fell plumb into the tank, head down and feet up. And I was about to be drowned, for better or worse, when there was a commotion from the servant-couple and the man-servant lifted me up from the tank and stood me on the ground. I was completely drenched and dripping, and my khaki knicker was wet as a sponge.
It was the first of many such humiliations in my long life.
I guess I owe some sort of debt of gratitude to the couple whose names were Venkayya and Venkamma.
After a year, Father got transferred to another village in the Nellore district called Kurichedu, and the servant-couple there were Venkayya and Subbamma. A year later we shifted to another village called Atmakur and the servant-couple there were, for a change, Subbaiah and Venkamma. Finally we landed in Muthukur where Father served as HM for seven long years. The servant-couple there were...hold your breath...Subbaiah and Subbamma.
I then went on to my university studies at Vizagh and lost touch with our Nellore district.
But one day while in Muthukur, I tackled Father about this universal Venkayyas and Subbaiahs and their namesake wives.
And Father told me that his own father was named Venkata Subbaiah (a golden combo). And his father was Venkatesaiah.
And Father's eldest brother was Venkata Subba Ramaiah. And the next brother was, again, Venkatesayya. And his last elder brother was Venkata Subramanyam. And that my grandfather on my mom's side was Venkata Subbaiah. And his wife was Venkata Subbamma.
I guess that about sums up the inordinate fondness for Venka and Subba in our Nellore district in those good old days.
The joke was that if you go to any coffee hotel (restaurant) in Nellore town and want Quick Service, just beckon the first waiter you see hanging around lousily and call him:
"Hullo, Venkata Rao!"
Failing which you shout:
"Hullo, Subba Rao!"
One of them will surely come, and you will elicit a smile on the server's map, and all would be fine...with extra ghee and second and third helpings of solid coconut chutney free with your masala dosa.
But don't shout:
"Hullo, Venkayya Naidu!"
...You will get a bucket of stale cold sambar (bereft of costly onions) thrown on your face since anyone connected anyway with BJP (whose ex-president he was) is persona non grata in the Seemandhra Region...that party was, they say, hand in gloves with the hated Congress in dividing their golden state, AP...
But Venky's Chicken looks ok...our ex-Diro, Prof GSS at IIT KGP, used to heavily invest in their shares...before he left us in his 90s.
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Apparently I am blessed (or cursed) with a prodigious memory for people and incidents in my life from my first childhood to the last.
My elder sister (just 2 years older to me) and my younger one (2 years younger) are amazed how I remember and recall all those incidents of which they have only a hazy memory. It happened when I sent them the story of my sorry predicament with Muthukur's tailor: Jaan Saheb:
They were thinking I was bluffing and that no such tailor ever existed. I told them to ask mom (92), and pat came the reply:
"Mother says she very well remembers Jaan Saheb: his shop was second from the bus-stand on the eastern side of the southern road"
So there is the DNA of it...
My mom has her own way of saying things like 'eastern side of the southern road'. When I was but a kid of 3 we were living in a village in our Nellore District, Buchi Reddy Palem. Apparently Father had a ten-year stint as a teacher there in two spells. And we were shifting from one rented house to another. And my mom always refers to these houses by the titles (not names) of her house-owners. Like the 'Reddy's house' (before I was born) and then the 'Nauluri's house' and then the 'Kalavalakolanu's house'. Don't be scared of that tongue-twister, Kalavalakolanu...it just means a lily-pond.
I was 3 when we were living in the 'Nauluri's house' which was a housing complex with 4 tenants and the owners. We had a common backyard in which there was a cemented well...the type with a fixed pulley round which goes a coconut fiber rope. One end of the rope is attached to a bucket in the well and the other to the hands of the puller.
Beside the well was a huge cement tank into which the servant-couple would pour the buckets of water they drew from the well. This tank was too deep for me to get into. And one evening when no one but the servants were around, I was playing with my hands dipped into the water in the well, I standing on the ground and bending full stretch, tiptoe.
And suddenly I overreached and fell plumb into the tank, head down and feet up. And I was about to be drowned, for better or worse, when there was a commotion from the servant-couple and the man-servant lifted me up from the tank and stood me on the ground. I was completely drenched and dripping, and my khaki knicker was wet as a sponge.
It was the first of many such humiliations in my long life.
I guess I owe some sort of debt of gratitude to the couple whose names were Venkayya and Venkamma.
After a year, Father got transferred to another village in the Nellore district called Kurichedu, and the servant-couple there were Venkayya and Subbamma. A year later we shifted to another village called Atmakur and the servant-couple there were, for a change, Subbaiah and Venkamma. Finally we landed in Muthukur where Father served as HM for seven long years. The servant-couple there were...hold your breath...Subbaiah and Subbamma.
I then went on to my university studies at Vizagh and lost touch with our Nellore district.
But one day while in Muthukur, I tackled Father about this universal Venkayyas and Subbaiahs and their namesake wives.
And Father told me that his own father was named Venkata Subbaiah (a golden combo). And his father was Venkatesaiah.
And Father's eldest brother was Venkata Subba Ramaiah. And the next brother was, again, Venkatesayya. And his last elder brother was Venkata Subramanyam. And that my grandfather on my mom's side was Venkata Subbaiah. And his wife was Venkata Subbamma.
I guess that about sums up the inordinate fondness for Venka and Subba in our Nellore district in those good old days.
The joke was that if you go to any coffee hotel (restaurant) in Nellore town and want Quick Service, just beckon the first waiter you see hanging around lousily and call him:
"Hullo, Venkata Rao!"
Failing which you shout:
"Hullo, Subba Rao!"
One of them will surely come, and you will elicit a smile on the server's map, and all would be fine...with extra ghee and second and third helpings of solid coconut chutney free with your masala dosa.
But don't shout:
"Hullo, Venkayya Naidu!"
...You will get a bucket of stale cold sambar (bereft of costly onions) thrown on your face since anyone connected anyway with BJP (whose ex-president he was) is persona non grata in the Seemandhra Region...that party was, they say, hand in gloves with the hated Congress in dividing their golden state, AP...
But Venky's Chicken looks ok...our ex-Diro, Prof GSS at IIT KGP, used to heavily invest in their shares...before he left us in his 90s.
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1 comment:
My brother and your cousin G Venkata Subba Rao was a noble cousin to whom you dedicated a booklet in your pre-blogging days. His son, who is a big shot in Wipro @ Tumkur, goes by the name Venkatesayya.
I guess the "Venkat" here refers to Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati, who is no mere local deity, unlike the Penchalayya/Kotayya/ Malakondayya, Appayya etal.
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