My ancestry in my memoir Annyatha Mullyaheena.

Dt 28.09.2014, Annyatha Mulyaheena , My ancestry.

     When I think about my village Tulati, particularly the dwellings of different sahi basti, wards, the placement of important structures and deities, temples, ponds etc, and the caste pattern wise housing I get so many conclusions. Many of my speculations may or may not be true but I think logically as far as possible. Let me start with our sahi Rahimanpur where not a single Muslim house one finds, how such a name came I once described, no ruler did it, a settlement officer being requested by several names preferred by different influential members, he on those days of non RTI, ignorance pushed his father`s name. This is a sahi of settlement of houses mostly on the two sides of the road. This was not actually a road but a running water nala that in three to four months of monsoon carried whole of the water from our western side to the eastern side fed the great pond Nuagadia just at the west of the village and the majestic pond of Kastura that is on the adjacent east of village and surplus carried to the vast paddy field on the south as it turned south ward at the boundary fence of my house. So my house is at the AGNI south east angle of my sahi also of the village, that is at the south west corner of the majestic pond. So the road or nala connected the south bank of both the big ponds. At the west the deity Maa Hingula and Maa Jagulai, at the middle Lord Gopinath and Maa Basulai bless the villagers. Our village has plenty many ponds and places of worship that in no way can say our fore fathers were blind believers; one can be envious to know that my village school was established in 1886 speaking literacy was a felt need.

From our roof.

    The portion of Rahimanpur I speak here consisted of two sub groups the Karana sahi and the Hatua (small business doers)sahi, Karanas stayed on west side and Hatuas on east side. The hatuas mostly were Telies (oil man), and a few Banias (gold smith), Gudias (sweet makers), Khandayata and the great Brahmin Ghana Acharya whose son Adwita became Ayodha Dash the learned pandit and Mohanta (chief) of Balaramkot muth of Puri. That family already left the village when I was a child. As telies were majority among the hatuas a portion is called telisahi. All the oilmen were Sahoo by title except our family. Our family was different in two aspects, it was titled Senapati (leader of group of army), our house was not connected to the teli sahi and there was intervening house of a delicious sweet maker whose Khiragajas no one in the world made better. One more aspect of my house is that it is not connected to any by lanes. The by lanes are Kanoongo gali, Rauta ghara gali, Teli sahi gali, Basuli gali. Moreever my grandfather`s mother came from a sahoo family of our sahi which proves we were of different family. The sahoo group was one Kutumbha and ours was different. My forefathers proudly told they were producers of turmeric not oil, it seemed very funny. Why a family would be known as oilman if they did not produce Oil? What way turmeric production is better than mustard production, and squeezing oil out of it?

     So for the above said various reasons I feel our family migrated on a later date and dwelled obviously where houses of other families ended, there was no place near any by lane, hence it constructed its house where it got space. Our family must have settled before the Majestic pond was dug, how else the pond is at further east of my house. Our house must be there before the Gramadevati Maa Mangala`s worship started so that Maa`s place is only a little east to our house. Our Hindu Bastusastra allowed extension towards east and the geography also suggested so. The school started in 1886, the pond must be not much before as the villagers who dug such a big pond must had thinking for a school and Maa Mangala`s worship must be a phenomenon of say 17^th century when our earliest forefather migrated to this foreign village for which I am so emotional about.

     Titles are of two types meaningful and meaningless, for example Mohanty of Karana is either meaningless or of some meaning which we do not know but Pattanaik obviously is meaningful somehow means head of the chiefs. Like Sahoo is an original title and Senapati is an earned title. May be someone in my ancestry came out of house with a stick and fought with a miscreant for which a King or a village head tied a turban on his head and called Senapati, then the descendants to glorify it did not return to original title. During Vakti/ Vaisnaba movements irrespective of caste people loved to take the title Dasha/ Dasa/ Das. There seems had no scope to get such a title in the geographical domain of Annyatha Mullyaheena, my village Tulati , so we came as Senapaties from a different area, why someone a Senapati should leave his native area? I do not believe it was for any gallantry but maybe we were driven out by natural calamity or by man made. Somebody is an Odyia, a oilman and a Senapati ! From where? Where and where??? I always exclaimed. So far I know at some places of Jajpur the oilman with Senapati Title exists. Now one Kanhu Charan Senapati is a government servant at CDMO Jajpur`s office is such a combination, may be at some other places. So I feel we were not great migratory birds but of local variety.

     I feel proud my grandfather and father remembered the ancestry of several generations, my grand children already born (elder brother`s granddaughter and elder sister`s granddaughter) are the 8^th generation we have remembered.

                                            Rama

              Shankar…………………...Sapana

                   /                               /

                   Nandu                                        Bikala

                   /                                                  /

                Anama                                          Jagata

                     /                                                                                     /

Padna, Gopala, Madhaba, Ajaya       Madana Mohan(my father) and Gagana Bihari(my late uncle)

                                                                       /                                                  /                         Kartik Chandra, Pravatnalini, Ashok(late),Sandhya, Rabinarayan…Kishore Chandra, Muturi

               /                                                                        /                              /                   Roshni, Kiran,JyotirmayaJyotirmaya     SayamSuraj , SohamSamprit               Sipra, SmrutiRanjan

         Usually a generation is counted as 50 years so up to our generation we can tell we are aware of last 300 to 350 years. This matches my assumption that roughly my family started residing in Tulati from Rama. Let us presume Rama the great grandfather of my grandfather eloped with a Sita, may be of other caste or community so was driven out by his villagers, came to Tulati the foreign liberal atmosphere and permanently settled here.     This is the first part of my ancestry, its internal matters to be discussed in next write.( My personal opinion is in our land of high mortality and early marriage one generation may be as less as 20 years if a father married at 18 got child at 20 and the son repeated it. It may be as high as 50 years too if one married early sure but it may be too many years if one`s several children died and the one who came at the age of fifty somehow survived. I think we are staying here for lesser number of years.)

Kastura the life line pond of my village.

I do not feel generations should be counted as 50 years it should be 25 to 30 years I do not know the procedure my father was born on 13.11 1936 his father in 2008 and grandfather in 1889 then what should be the length of a generation? Uncle Padana who is one generation senior to my elder brother is actually one year younger than my brother; number of years for their four generation is equal for our five generations. The age difference between a father and a son may be as less as 18 years on those days or maybe 45 years if several children died and last one survived. So no one can correctly tell the date of birth of Rama the great grandfather of my grandfather it may be anywhere in between 1795 AD to 1830 AD. He must have come with Sita at the age of 18 to 20 so the correct time of my family`s settlement at Tulati may be somewhere between 1813 AD to 1848 AD. There is also a chance that Rama`s father or grandfather were locals but they had not more than one son so the family was not extended. 

     It is very interesting to know that the great grandfather of my grandfather Rama`s wife was Sita, in our side Sapana`s wife was Sharia, Bikala`s wife was Pata, Jagat`s wife was Janjali. My mother is Lakshmipriya and aunt again was Sita. I presume and what I had seen in my childhood women were never put in lesser place in our village. Our village`s life line the majestic pond of Kastura was dug by a lady Kasturi so how can anyone discriminate. This is the main reason why my grandfather remembered his great grandmother`s name and felt it important to teach my father. My father`s eye sparkled when I demanded to know their names, he told the name Sharia his great grandmother as if she was his own girl friend.

What is in a name? May be there is. Rama was a great name. His sons Shankar the Lord of destruction was a great name, the other son Sapana meant dream was a romantic name so also his wife Sharia. This suggest our forefathers were advanced they did not keep names like hagura mutura etc. How then came the names Nandu as Shankara`s son and Bikala as sapana`s son, so ordinary names. Nandu means shaved head and Bikala means melancholic. I assign one out of two possible reasons. 

     The first maybe before Rama the Senapati family was great. Rama came moneyless to Tulati worked as a labor class man and the family lived miserably, although the tempo of keeping good names was there in next generation it lost its meaning in the third generation in a poor family. But I reject this proposal as on those days strong people earned more, my grandfather told his grandfather was very tall strong and stout, so also was his father, my grandfather as I remember was a tall man but was with diseased figure when I saw him, my father and brothers are very strong.My uncle Gagan Senapati was tall unfortunately was chronically asthmatic and died at the age of 37 in 1975. So also Shankara`s descendants were and are strong. Hard work is the hallmark of both the families. Of course our ancestors were not rich at any point. It was not possible someone settled in a new village not for any glorious work would be man of money or power. 

     The second reason maybe on those days of high mortality many children died and people had belief that if ordinary names were chosen the Yamaraj  Lord of death ignores the kid. Such a practice was continued till to recent times. I support this theory as both the side had only one sons for continuous three generations, did they adopt any birth control, not a possibility it was because of high infant mortality. Yes my grandfather had three sisters all died, the last of them was a maternal death. My great grandfather had six sisters and all of them were leading family life in different villages nearby. Bikala Senapati died in 1942 at the age of 52 only, This was sudden from some febrile illness. Malaria?? His wife Pata survived till 1961 who was the dominating figure from 1942 to 1961 she did try for the improvement of the family and started money/ rice lending business. She was very short tempered and she wanted strict discipline. She on the date of her death had a dispute with a neighbor Fakira Sahoo on recovery of the money. The sick Fakira Sahoo had to return it to her instant but with displeasure, my grandfather sympathized the man. The old lady did not survive to enjoy the money returned. She went to attend the call of nature, was found dead in our family pond. Everyone thought it was accidental, can someone do a suicide following a dispute with a neighbor and after winning the dispute only because my grandfather sympathized the other man who was sick. Let us presume the hurt sick man`s curse my great grandmother could not survive. Fakira Sahoo was extremely sorry as he and everyone else loved the old lady. So what was the fun in being obsessed with the money you lent. My parents keep Pata in very high esteem, she made our family self dependant on agricultural output. Her son and grandson thereafter became able to certain extent to improve more to bring the family from lower class to middle class. Pata Senapati the widow recovered what Ramaji lost eloping with the girl Sita as a money less man to settle at a foreign village Tulati, the kingdom of Annyatha Mullyaheena.

     It is my pleasure to feel Shankar`s family the other side of Rama Senapati also became members of middle class at equal time. We remained humble with each other`s family and never forgot our forefathers were not very rich though we were Senapati meaning Commander`s family.  

   

Keep Pocket in short story collection Madhuban days.

Keep pocket.

Keep pocket!

 Mr Mishra was confused over the name or adjective of the old man in his sixties, he knew pickpockets. Those are plenty now a days, not a few in earlier days either. He asked Mr Nayar over a cup of tea. Nayar the proud man works as head accountant in the Jindal Stainless Steel and Power Limited at Madhuban industrial area. He belongs to Malgudi in Kerala and personally knows RK Narayanan the founder of the city, but he desired to live here with family forever. This old man is seen here for last several months only.

The tea tasted pleasantly different, keep pocket prepared it with white milk extracted from the mesh of coconut pulp.

 Oh!

Mr  Nayar explained, this man is not an ordinary one, a famous man in entire Kerala beyond Malgudi. Not only in Kerala the whole of South India knew him. Famous! Mr Nayar wanted to correct it to infamous.

Once upon a time he was young, with a beautiful wife Heena and two small children a toddler boy and an infant girl. He earned enough to run his family and to keep her wife in up to date fashion that made her happy. She never enquired what exactly his earning was and the method.

Melas were the best places for his job that demanded clinical precision, and attention of a fish bird. On one occasion as told by RK Narayanan he followed a man of his own age moving in the mela with a conspicuous green blazer. Green blazer drank green coconut milk this man followed, he wanted a balloon from a vendor as demanded by his motherless child and bargained for it's price this man overheard. This man went on following the blazer till ultimately the job was over, the purse was picked up.

 Before throwing the empty wallet into an unused well he wanted to fill the flaps with small pebbles to be sure it dipped to the bottom of the well to be unnoticed. He discovered the balloon, that one which the green blazer purchased for his motherless child. It turned his heart, became too emotional to feel the reaction of the longing child of this cruel man bargaining on the price of a balloon for a motherless child.

 He once again was in the mela spotted the green blazer in the rush and tried to keep the wallet back in his pocket with the balloon inside, a bad job for him tried for the first time in his life.

Oh no! He failed and the strong man in green blazer caught him. It followed the standard treatment by the mob.

Heena now could know their life line ran with his unholy earning.

 She tried to get her man released as the last act was the only good work he did in his life. Why then punish him? She moved from post to pillar, but it was proved beyond doubt he was a pickpocket. The only defense he uttered everywhere and in front of the magistrate was that he tried to keep it inside his pocket.

 This was not a defense but confessing the crime.

 Still then his wife tried. The advocate told her the only way was to convince the green blazer to withdraw the case. Now she became penniless.

Heena went to the complainant several times, cleaned his house, did all works she found pending in the womanless house. That man sympathized her, gave her money to run the family, sent chocolates to her children, and finally agreed to withdraw the case as he was convinced the pickpocket with a good intention came back to him and actually tried to keep it back.

 He first went to Police station with Heena. Heena saw the photograph of her man on the warning notice board. It depressed her. The police officer told that the matter is now within court's control and there only the appeal to withdraw the case would be done.

 They went to the advocate, paid his fees and he promised to appeal.

 They went back to the railway station, here also her husband`s photo was displayed which she could not see as it was displayed at a height. Now the green blazer intentionally made her aware of the photo there and at some other places in the platform. "Once the man returns will start picking up", he reminded her. With a voice full of concern and compassion he wanted to tell her that the future was not desired to be in bad hands of that pickpocket. He wanted to remind she was very beautiful and her children cannot be properly groomed with unholy earning. He wanted to take their care, he wanted to impress her that his own son is very nice and mild tempered.

He was rather crazy, to win her imagination.

 Something echoed in her core. She was no more interested for his release, she got afraid. She was now concerned, the punishment was only one and half year imprisonment which she imagined should have multiplied with number of previous crime he had done. Crimes were increasing only because of ordinary punishment. What would a weak and poor man do to her after his release? His name was reflected on all mirrors as a pickpocket.

 Felt pity for him.

 Green blazer is strong, with money and earns from noble work with all probability. He had one child she had two. What harm is to add a child of theirs to his child and her children?

she now was excited for him.

 They returned back towards his fairly good house. She was found sitting very close, resting to him like a creeper.

 On the very next day she with her children lived with him. After few months they sold everything and left Malgudi forever.

No one liked to carry the message to the pickpocket. He by the time of his release was a joke in police circuit as keep pocket.

He lost his mental balance seeing the happenings, went to the police station to lodge the complain that Green blazer stole his wife. Police consoled and counseled him to leave the place.

He demanded some action; if keeping back a purse was punishable then burglary of his wife and children needed some bigger punishment.

 Now all told he was mad, children threw pebbles at him; all called him keep pocket to chide. The man left Malgudi and wandered at different places of south India, his photograph on the notice boards made his life pathetic.

 How he lived till today is strange.

He cursed himself for not being capable of keeping something in someone's pocket with equal skill of picking a wallet. tried practising. His only purpose of earning from various manual labor was to save some money, buy a wallet and keep a currency note and a balloon inside it, then put it in someone's pocket who appeared helpless to his eye. Sometimes people misunderstood him, some people got real benefit and it became a perpetual news item. He always remained in disguise. When he could not earn anything he tried differently, would pick up from two pockets and exchange the rich man’s purse with poor man`s.

 He spoke to himself, "wallets love rich pockets."

 Once he picked up a purse and could not do the next trick. A photograph of a middle aged woman was noticed in it. Yes it could only be Heena. Instantly knew the purse belonged to his own son, he got an address, Jindal stainless, Madhuban, Jajpur, Odisha that brought him here.

 Mr Nayar deciphered his language in this unknown place and could know it was his own address which Heena`s son kept to meet him here to appear an interview, days ago one of his relations in Kerala requested  to help the young man's entry to his company.

 He did not leave Mr Nayar with a hope that his son may come here one day. He lived with hope.

Mr Nayar is not telling a story it is real as exchange of purses makes news in Madhuban. Mr Mishra suggested taking the keep pocket to a psychiatrist for a cure before he meets his son.

 Neither of them is sure it will help the situation or will be detrimental.