kesavaram and gudimellanka, andhra pradesh, india, december 28 – 30

We left Hyderabad at dawn for the villages where Mom and Dad grew up. Madhavi and her siblings spent many a summer break in those villages, when Hyderabad was barely on the map and the whole extended family lived there, so these villages hold deep memories for everyone in her family. They are hundreds of kilometers east into the countryside of the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, near the giant Godavari River, which becomes a delta there before depositing itself into the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean just a few kilometers downstream. I first visited the villages three years ago; I was instantly enamored by them and have looked forward to going back.

We went by car rather than train this time, which allowed us to stop and do some fun things along the way like strolling through crop fields and stealing a few lentils and later stopping at the Kanaka Durga temple. As we approached the Godavari, the landscape became more and more lush, dominated by coconut trees and rice fields. After weaving through a small town with its bullock carts and bicycle-rickshaws and insane pedestrian traffic, we finally crossed a small bridge to arrive in Kesavaram, Dad’s home village west of the river. We were given the typical warm welcome by Thathayya and Nanamma (the Telegu words for paternal grandfather and grandmother). The home, an airy colorful cement structure with one story in front and two in the back, with orange-tiled roofs, concrete floors, and a large patio and courtyard. We hardly exchanged any words before we got right down to the business of eating – in the villages you can’t sit around for more than a couple minutes without being fed. We devoured a wonderful baby shrimp curry and various veggie curries. Oh that shrimp was so good and representative of the general superiority of village food – it is just so flavorful. The chicken, for example, is often free-range and super-fresh, so it actually tastes like a different meat - chicken need not be just a neutral vehicle for spices and sauces.

Thathayya and Nanamma were so sweet to me as usual. Just down the road we visited Peddathathayya - Telegu for the older brother of your paternal grandfather (yes, relationship terminology is that specific, and just wait). He is an unforgettable 89 year-old man that laughs, yells at you (in the most endearing way possible), and cries before you in the same sitting. The first thing he told me, or actually yelled at me out of nowhere (again, sweet as can be, seriously), translated from Telegu:“I WAKE UP AT 4 IN THE MORNING, HAVE TWO IDDLIES AT 4:30 FOR BREAKFAST, RICE WITH SAMBAR AT FOR LUNCH AT 8:30, AND RICE WITH PAPPU AT 3:30 FOR DINNER; EVERY DAY, JUST LIKE THAT!" He is so giving that whenever Madh’s family brings him a gift it’s gone the next time – given away to someone needy.

We visited friends and family in the village who recounted Madhavi as a toddler: refusing milk and demanding coffee instead so they’d have to have put a drop of it in the milk; or refusing baths until the whole village came by to coax her into it which would take like an hour, and so on.


The next day we went to Gudimellanka, Mom’s home village east of the river. The family home there is simply idyllic, set behind two lily ponds and flanked by a giant rice field to one side and coconut tree fields to the other side and behind. It was built by Madh's great-grandfather in 1946, at the tail end of British rule. We were greeted by my Pinni, which means mother-in-law’s younger brother’s wife; for Madhavi, though, this same person is Atthayya, which is what Mom (Madh’s mom) is for me, though Atthayya for me also refers to Mom’s sisters with “Chinna” or “Pedda” prefixes, respectively, for younger and older sisters; for Madh, Pinni refers to Dad’s younger brother’s wife OR her mother’s younger sister – got it? Madh’s cousins Niyanti and Vikram were there as well. All are great and fun to hang with. We started out with more great food (see the plate of food picture with ~10 dishes).

We then drove a couple kilometers to the Godavari for a houseboat trip, which was a really good time – see several pics on the link. The weather is so perfect here at this time of year, and the scenery is gorgeous. We just sat up on the upper deck of this boat and ate sugarcane (if you've never had it, it is much less sweet and so much better than you'd think), guava, and a bunch of snacks, and played guess-when-the-sun-will-set, all while just joking around and taking like a thousand pictures of it all between the 20 of us (there was other family there too).

The next day we heard stories from Pinni at breakfast, visited Madh’s late maternal grandfather’s sister, then went to Chinathayya's house in Pallakolu, a small town, for some of the best sweets I’ve ever had. They use brown sugar or even brown sugarcane syrup (one step less refined than sugar) to make many of their desserts, and the results are delicious.

We then packed 6 people in one car and 5 in another for the 9 hour trip back to Hyderabad. We had really good conversation, with Vikram, an engaging and intelligent guy, Madh, Dad, and I yapping the whole way. At one point we had a heated argument about which country is better retaining its traditional culture, India or China. Dad argued vehemently that is was China while I sided with India, with Madhavi arbitrating, Vikram sitting there shocked by how a father-in-law and son-in-law could yell at each other like that for over an hour, and Mom finally telling us to cool it.

Now a brief anecdote about highway driving in India – after we weaved out of the way of about 6 vehicles that were going the wrong way over the period of an hour on this DIVIDED highway (ala Planes Trains and Automobiles, the movie), I asked Dad why this was happening (after being in India for a week or so you don’t bother asking such a question after the first sighting as you become numb to such things). He explained that because there are no on/off ramps, drivers who followed the rules might have to drive a kilometer or two in the undesired direction before reaching an opening in the divider to do a U-turn to go in the desired direction, and this would waste gas so instead they just go against traffic – ON THE HIGHWAY! To add to the comedy, they do this in the fast lane because when you’re driving on the wrong side of the road the fast lane feels like the correct side of road to be on – you wouldn’t want to violate that rule too! The sight of a huge Tata truck casually veering out of the fast lane without so much as a honk to avoid a little scooter or a little tractor unabashedly going the wrong way on a national highway is just precious.

We arrived in Hyderabad with 24 hours left in 2006, a year that was finishing with quite a wonderful bang.