Filling Gaps in the story and Jyotsna's birth

I am surprising myself - two blogposts in a day! I am getting a high writing this because all of you out there are reading this and encouraging me. And I am eager to get to some more of the exciting parts, but trying to avoid too many back and forth turns. I am therefore seeking completion of gaps before I proceed to the next chapter in Ammamma's life.

Reacting to my descriptive of Ammamma's AIWC Conference, she recalled that something very significant did happen, not at the Conference, but at the Communist Party office. For the first time, an All India Communist Party Women's Meeting took place formally. Comrades P C Joshi and G Adhikari addressed a crowd of about 25 women, some famous already for their protest history. Ammamma and Vijayalakshmi represented AP and were absorbing all that was being said at the meeting. The main theme was the focus of the Communist Party approach to National Politics and Development and the need for everyone in the party to take the movement to the masses. Among those who participated were Renu Chakravarti (later MP and married to famous Journalist Nikhil Chakravarti), Kalyani (who later married the famous Mohana KumaraMangalam), Parvati Krishnan (married N K Krishnan), Vimala Ranadive (married B T Ranadive), Perin Bharucha (later Rameshchandra), Mrs Adhikari, and Didi (A S K Iyengar's wife, who came in after Ammamma and Vijayalakshmi attended the AIWC conference). You will notice that many were party marriages between comrades, or families who became wedded to the cause. Ammamma was in awe of many of them as they had already left their mark on the national scene. She particularly talked about Kalpana (later married P C Joshi), whose dare devilry became famous as the Chittagong Armed Raid Case. I met this lady Kalpana Joshi when we were in Delhi and I had joined the one year Higher Secondary course. She was such a serene and dignified lady one automatically was respectful of, but it was difficult for me to picture her as the armed activist doing daring feats of assault and attack with incendiary. I remember her quizzical smile when I went on staring at her (I can see Sweety & Preeti giving me those looks - I haven't changed much, have I?), trying to see the fiery young Kalpana in the distinguished lady's visage before me.

In fact Ammamma was to meet people of different calibre and achievements and aspired to emulate them. In Guntur office, she met several people, including Rahul Sankrutyayan (a great writer, famous for the socio cultural novel Volga se Ganga - he married a Russian girl and named his son Rahulovich), and Prithvi Singh Azad. This man belonged to the Gadar Party, which grew pretty fast to have following and office in the US as well, but many of these groups later merged into one movement. The difference in approach to achieving independence was the main reason that there were many splinter groups initially, but they had a healthy respect for each other. Prithvi Singh Azad was a hero figure amongst the youngsters in Andhra because, he escaped from police custody on train after the train left Bapatla and he did not know a word of Telugu. He just used two words - Deshabhaktam and Swarajyam and with that was able to get people to take him to the Communist Party office and then on to Guntur. Here all the young brigade fell over each other to meet the hero and of course, can Ammamma miss this occasion? Ammamma tells me about the craze for Russian names for children born in Andhra at that time, specially heroic names of people in the Second World War. Girls were invariably named Tanya and Zoya and boys Lenin, Stalin (with Babu added of course!), a poor fellow even named Watootin, after a certain General! I have often mused about the coastal Andhra penchant for naming their children, together with the surnames of the heroes from India and Russia. Do you know that we have JawaharLal, Subhas Chandra Bose, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Jayaprakash Narayan among boys and several Jhansi's (after Jhansi ki Rani Lakshmi Bai) in Ammamma's family and therefore my cousins and nephews and nieces? Half of them were named by Satyam Tatayya. Fortunately for us, Ammamma and Tatayya were such literary buffs that they sought good names for me and Maapi. I later came to know that there are more mad people in India other than coastal Andhra people, when in a BHEL training programme, I met a poor marketing guy named Hitler from Tamil Nadu! He must have had problems every time he met clients, unless he used his marketing ingenuity to turn that as the opening conversational piece and turn a disadvantage into an advantage.

Ammamma continued her campaign in the villages against repression, women empowerment, health and other development issues. She also visited China Pulivarru - my father's village and the family was quite embarrassed that their daughter in law was carrying out such unlady like and more importantly anti establishment activities. Tatayya's brother in law, (Tatayya had only one sister, who was much older than him) was particularly livid inasmuch as it caused loss of face for him in the village, where he was strutting about as a major landlord, even though all the lands actually belonged to Tatayya's father. In fact, in later years, he gambled away the entire property (I believe around 100 acres!) and Tatayya was advised to file a case as it was inherited property and the lenders cannot confiscate it. However Tatayya desisted from doing so, for the sake of his father and sister. Anyway, the family categorically told Ammamma that she should not continue her activities there and they asked her to leave the place, but Ammamma finished her work and then only left the place.

Meanwhile, Ammamma was pregnant with her second child, who was born in October 1946 (a Libran Preets!). She therefore started translating a book called Chinese Women, but did not complete it before her delivery. Jyotsna was born and she was an extremely lovely child with very big eyes and a thick mop of hair. There was not a single person who did not comment on the child's beauty. Alas - this child too had a short life span and a painful one at that. Jyotsna became sickly after the sixth month and despite Ammamma and Tatayya seeking medical help, she was gradually emaciated and passed away three months after independence. Sometimes Ammamma thinks probably she had some liver disease and drugs were not available or affordable, but one really did not know what was the cause of her sickness. Everytime Ammamma talks about Jyotsna, she always mentions her eyes. Her photograph exists in a frame. I will upload it one of these days after getting it from Maapi and scanning it. I was always wistful of having an elder sister and brother, more so the sister. But who knows - maybe I would have been jealous of her famed beauty? How do we know how we would behave unless we actually confront situations? Incidentally, I must also mention that Ammamma always showed her happiness and humour uproariously, but kept her grief to herself. She is very stoical in the face of adversity (I wonder why those genes bypassed me and went to Sweety) and makes people think that she is a very tough woman and a hard nut to crack. They say it snidely too. But what do they know of her pain in multiple losses - be it child birth, acute financial problems, rejection in relationships within and outside family and other issues. What do they know of her magnanimity of spirit when she welcomed and helped and looked after people who turned their faces away in times of her dire problems? This is what I admire most in Ammamma and react very loudly and angrily when someone like the man upstairs keeps saying that Ammamma is very strong and tough and nothing will happen to her and that he is the one who needs to be sympathised. You will see more of her resilient spirit in the coming blogs.