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.