seem to have spread around the world. I recd. a letter saying that one Ramaprasad Gadde is entitled to about 700 dollars and if does not collect it soon, he will loose it. I do not know who he is. Today I also recd. a family tree of the Gaddes of Avanigadda ( earlier Avaneejapuram, later Avaneepuram) and I do not know most of them. Apparently, there was an attempt in 1914 by Gadde Kotaiah Naidu who migrated to Madras area and made it. He was supposed to have donated about one and half acres for Madras Central Station and built a railway station Anupampattu near his village Pudikuppam. Another Gadde Rangaiah Naidu also migrated to Madras and became the mayor (municilal councillor ?) of Madras. I remember seeing a street in Madras named after him. According to the family tree prepared by Kotaiah Naidu in 1914, the Gaddes of Avanigadda came 394 years before that from 'Gaddevaarigudem' near Nellur. One Potaraju Mukkanna (daskatdar of Avanigadda, I do not know what daskatdar means)visited Kotappakonda nearby for Sivaratri festivals, met some Gaddes, felt that they were good farmers and invited them to come and cultivate temple lands in avanigadda. That is how, approximately, 500 years ago two families of Gaddes (of dhanyala gotram) came to Avanigadda. The early marriage alliances were with Paruchuri, Kota, Yarlagadda and Thumati families. Apart from some who made money and some local bigwigs, There do not seem to be any illustrious Gaddes. The nearest is Avula Sambasiva Rao, A.P High Court Chief Justice and a rationalist writer who is claimed as a nephew of the Gaddes. Now they seem to have spread to all the continents (though I have not heard of any in Africa).
From what I remember most of our families were middle class struggling to send children to college and many of them could not. Many of the current ones seem relatively affluent who can afford foreign vacations, eat in relatively expensive restaurants etc. Compared to them, many from the poorer castes in the same area are still struggling to make a living. Caste connections are probably useful in this acquisition of prosperity and I hope that some of them will try to spread the prosperity to others.
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I googled for daskat and the only thing that turned up was this blog post! I tried looking up in an online Urdu dictionary at
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=19936801&postID=6938979039049921062&pli=1
which seems to suggest that this has to do with signatures? Perhaps, someone authorized to sign or someone authorized to verify signatures?
In the sense of signature or handwriting the word exists in Kannada too. It is possible that daskatdar is someone who would write court documents? Such people were around in Bangalore and were called writers.
Thanks.
Swarup
K.P.
Here is 1914 stuff in English script:
Telugu Transcript reads as follows:
1914 samvatsaram september nela 14 tedi chengalpattu zilla
Ponneru taluka pudukuppamulo Gadde Kotayyagari
Vamsavali anandanama sam: bhadrapada bahula10 dasami
Somavaram vrasinadi. Shumaaru 390 samvatsaramulaninchi
Eevamsavali anaga eevamsamuvaru pradhamamulo nelluru
zillanunchi gaddevaru aneintiperalavari anaga gadde
sayannagarni divitaluka daskatdaru ayyina anaga pettandarlu
ayyina potaraju mukkannagaru teeskuvatchi eekammavarni
choudarlu ani premato yerpatu chesinaru
............
It seems to give the meaning of daskatdar as pettandarlu in Telugu.
Interesting stuff. Never thought you can dig this stuff up. What about from your mother's side.
As Turanga says daskatdar is one who countersigns documents. Remember we needed to get signature by gazetted officers on our transcripts.
Such an important person naturally will be a leader "Pettandari".
NVR,
No idea. I think that the 1914 document is incomplete ; they have only 6 generations in 390 years. Some of the relatively prosperous guys in USA are working on it. It seems to be a common desire to find one's roots. I do not seem to have much of it and mainly posted this to see whether ramaprasad will see and get his money back. Also it is interesting that two families (?) gave rise to so many. There was recent study which suggests that Indians came from a small number of families about 700 years ago. That means that propensity foe some genetic diseases may be high. On the otherhand, the Indian use of tumeric and such in their food may have been helpful.
By the way, you know Turanga from TIFR days.
There are many kamma families in Khammam district with Gadde surnames. Not sure if they realate to the Gaddes of Avanigadda!
Sridhar,
I do not know. I vaguely remember a few moving to 'Nizam' in the fifties, but I thought they moved to Nizamabad area. When they came back home, they used to say that it was colder there in winter, and rapped themselves in 'gongali'. That is about all I remember.
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