People of the village named Eleswaram lived their lives on their own terms. They had very little worries that bothered them. They had plenty of food in their stomachs. Their farms yielded plenty of food grains, nobody went hungry, even the poorest of poor had a content stomach. The elders in the village lived their lives content believing that their youngsters would go on the right track no matter what. All of them lived a life of merry making, enjoying and celebrating all the festivals. When merry making lasts a long time, boredom sets in. So the elders started getting into the next stage of euphoria that was consuming intoxicating substitutes like opium and arrack an intoxicating drink made out of palm syrup. Women of the village didn’t mind because the men were happy and didn’t deprive them of their share of comforts.
One such family was Tangirala family; four brothers, their wives and their children lived under the same roof in total harmony. At all times one brother took the responsibility of providing for the family and the other three lived a life of merrymaking. The youngest brother died early leaving his widow named Lavanya with a son named Satya and a daughter named Savitri. Both the children were blessed with good looks and sharp brain.
The elders in the family decided to find an eligible boy for Savitri and marry her off as soon as she reached teens. In due course she became the mother of five sons and three daughters. All her aspirations and dreams of reaching the zenith of knowledge were blown in the winds. She diverted all her energies in guiding her sons in reaching those heights in their academics. She fulfilled her dreams through her sons and her sons did not disappoint her.
Satya being a son and the younger child could take much more liberties with the elders of the family. Satya was like the wind which could not be harnessed by mortals. His mind would work faster than the light. He was the master of his will. Everyone and anyone would be the targets of his pranks in their unsuspecting moments. One day his courage crossed all limits and the local European resident became the subject of his pranks. In those days when India was under the British rule, tolerance to such pranks played by the local Indians was unthinkable. One day Satya decided to test his own courage. He sneaked into the residents stable with a metal can filled with harmless but loud and noisy fire crackers. He tied the can to the resident’s favorite hors’s tail and ran away. The horse was so startled and petrified by the noise; he broke the stable barricades and ran forty miles. Next day they found the horse forty miles away. After this incident the elders of the family decided to seriously harness the boy’s intelligence, so they sent him to school where they taught English.
Satya was a smart boy he excelled in the studies. By the time he graduated his fame was wide spread and he was offered a job in Hindu newspaper in Madras as a reporter. In early 1930s the prince of whales came to India and he needed a stenographer. Satya acquired the job because of his speed in typing, knowledge of local languages and English. His smartness was an added advantage to him. He toured the whole of India with the prince of Whales for the next nine months. The prince of Whales was very impressed with Satya and his efficiency he offered him a government job as a parting gift. Satya excelled in the tasks assigned to him. Very soon he started climbing the ladder of success and reached the impressive heights of success very few Indians could climb in that era. He became an icon of style and success. Both the British and Indians looked at him with awe and would get mesmerized by his charismatic personality. Since he was the favorite of Prince of Whales nobody had the courage to disrespect him. His words were the command and his gestures were the guiding light to the right paths. He could shake up the entire office with one command but in the presence of his fragile, petite beautiful mother Lavanya he would get tongue tied and helpless. Her one reprimanding look was enough to melt him like melting Himalayan snow in the bright sun. On the eve of independence of India he worked with three other East India Company officers and helped them destroy the most confidential files till the stroke of midnight, at the stroke of midnight twelve he took out his gun and told the other three British officers to stay away saying, “Stay away from these files they belong to our free country India.”
Lavanya’s main worry was to get a nice homely bride for her son who would be a good home maker, bear healthy children to make the family tree grow and yet be docile and respectful to her position as the mother-in-law. She starts an active hunt for the eligible daughter-in-law. She goes back to her late husband’s family home and requests her relatives to help her find one. Two houses away they find a nice girl named Padma.
Padma is a pretty teenager. She lost her mother when she was still an infant. Her father was the eldest of the three brothers. The three brothers were very close to each other but Padma’s father felt the need to find himself a bride to take care of Padma, cook for his brothers and take care of the family home. The new wife is close to the sister-in-laws but finds Padma an unwelcome liability. She finds herself unable to tolerate the motherless child. She does not hesitate to distance herself from this infant and at times even become mean to her. Padma’s uncles observe this tardy behavior of their new sister-in-law and try their best to give this child all the love and protection she deserved. They would carry her on their back and take her to the farms and work in their farms supervising the labor. Padma grew up eating the adult food as an infant with her uncles and grew up a motherless child.
Padma’s maternal home was a massive mansion. Granaries were full of grains; Safes were full of gold coins and precious stones. They say one day when Padma’s father was readjusting the stones of the flooring to resurface the flooring, he found three big pots of gold coins under the flooring. There was so much gold that the three brothers distributed the gold among themselves with the measuring bowl.
In the same mansion lived three king cobras. Whenever they felt hungry they would come on the wooden beams of the kitchen and dance the reptile dance. The three brother’s wives would understand them and would offer them milk. These snakes would come down and drink the milk and would go away peacefully. They had been coexisting in this home with this family for more than a century. There was no record of any snake harming any family member ever.
On the full moon day the snakes would shed their skin. One such full moon evening Padma’s father was admiring the plants in his garden and he observed the shed snake skin. He called his brother and showed him. The brother picked it up and said there is more here. The snake was still in the process of shedding the skin, it hurt the snake and it hissed lifting the hood. Padma’s father was a little disturbed he called the snake charmer and got all the three snakes killed against everyone’s advise.
Days passed, one night Padma’s father dreamt that a king cobra came to him and said “You ended my family; you will not be survived by any male member in your family to continue your family name.” Within next one year all the male members in the family died of disease one by one. The family wealth vanished due to lack of knowledge among the women folk of the family. Farms stopped yielding due to neglect. Poverty engulfed the family home.
Lavanya found this cultured girl Padma a suitable bride for her son Satya. She was beautiful, from a good family and defenseless. Soon she bullies Satya into marrying Padma.
This is how Satya and Padma’s family started. They had two sons and five daughters. Each child had a distinct personality. We can look into some of the personalities of the next generation, which are the children of Vijay and Ratnakumari and the children of Satya and Padma later.
