ammamma's story- a life no less extraordinary!

Decided that today is the day I must start blogging and reaching out to you all, for many reasons - it's mother's day today and I must do something that I have put off for years; I finally realised it is also cathartic to communicate in print as we really never seem to have time anymore for leisurely chats like in the days when 24 hours in a day meant lots of things to do! Isn't it strange that we now have so many things to do and to say and we never are able to find the time? I know that you know that I always wanted to write Ammamma's story and never got to doing it. So here's hoping that I would be able to complete what I started. So here it goes - a story that may also give you some glimpses of my making too, but essentially the extraordinary story of Ammamma as I want you girls to remember. So here it goes!

Birth

You must have noticed Ammamma's great passion for political discussions, particularly those concerning elections. You must have wondered what in her backgorund gave her this penchant. I will try and document the numeorus details and string them together, though they have a propensity to getting into a muddle, as memories often do. Still, I will try my best!

Ammamma was born on the 17^th of July, 1926, as a seemingly normal and innocuous little baby girl, in a household where the birth of a child had also become a routine every two years. When Ammamma was born, she had one living older step-sister, four living elder brothers, who were followed by two living older sisters (one sister, a twin of the first girl, died at birth). Her step-sister, Manikyam was already married at the time of Ammamma’s birth, and her eldest brother, Anjiah, was 16 years older than her. The birth schedule continued till Ammamma’s younger sister was born four years later (she was also a twin, but her twin died as in the case of the first sister). As a child I remember being highly fascinated with the concept of twins and hoping (at that time quite naively) that I would also have twins. In our entire family however, the genetic proclivity to twins was manifest only in one family, that is Jhansakka, who is the only child of the fourth brother, Satyanarayana. Unfortunately, of Jhansakka’s twin boys, only one survived. That is Lakshmana.

Ammamma’s brothers were named Anjiah, Bhushiah, Raghaviah and Satyanarayana and her sisters were named Pushpavati, Saraswati, (Ammamma: Savitri) and Vanakumari. Certainly the girls’ names were more interesting and imaginative than the boys’ names and I wonder why.

Ammamma’s mother’s name was Rajarathnamma (nee:Nadendla) and she was the second wife, taken after the first wife died. My grandfather’s name was Kudithipudi Krishnaiah. So Ammamma had both her father and husband with the same name!

Ammamma was born in Bethapudi, a village in Repalle taluka of Guntur district. I visited this place till my eldest uncle, that is, Anjiah, lived there. My memories of that house are pleasant, which I shall tell you some other time. Ammamma used to take me to all the villages where her brothers and sisters lived, come every summer, without fail. This continued till my sixteenth year, after which, I went to college and that was the end of my connectivity to roots. I actually did not go back to any village till Preeti was two years old and I took her to attend a wedding at Challapalli ( Sweety was in Delhi visiting Jyothatta and Prasad Mamayya all alone). Which means that I stayed away from villages for almost 16 years! And yet later, I could go again only after another 20 years and coincidentally again with Preeti to visit Suryavati Atthayya (Sweety was in the US of A).

Ammamma’s first memory of her childhood is that of being clothed in dresses by her new sister in law Jaya (later Jayamma, mother of Chittattha). Till the marriage of her elder brother, which happened when Ammamma was three or four years old, in typical village fashion, all younger children were left pretty much naked, except that girls had a fig leaf like covering made of gold, silver or brass, depending on the affluence of the family and it was called ‘siggu billa’, literally meaning shield of shame! Jaya came from a progressive village and a progressive family of school teachers and was therefore considered modern and fashionable by the standards of Bethapudi, and she was educated. Her village Amrutaluru, again in Tenali taluka, was politically active as well. She therefore, insisted on the proper upbringing of the girl child, first by clothing Ammamma.

Ammamma has another memory of her early childhood which was told to her later and remained as a permanent reminder on her body. She was a crawling baby when her maternal uncle visited them. An earthen container of coals were brought for him to light his home made cigar (chutta) and Ammamma, the ever curious one, decided to take them into her hands and of course, she got burnt badly, with the middle finger (tall man) getting bent for life. I do not think that this stopped Ammamma from ever getting adventurous later in life, as later events would prove. One would have thought that this would have been enough to make her become obedient and careful. ( I really wonder what genes have made Sweety so very careful that she would think a hundred times before she would sit down to step off a small peeta!!)