Amama [1]​​

 

Me: I'd love for you to give an introduction [about] the house and what the city was like when you built the house. I'll be taking notes and reporting as we go along. So that when I sit down and write over the break, I've got a good account of what we talked about and what we discussed. 

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Amama: Okay. The beginning. How I got the land. Alright. [Your] great grandparents [were] living with your mom in that Secunderabad flat, which is in the heart of the city. [Then,] we thought that we need a bigger house when all our family comes. So instead of buying [in] Banjara Hills, which is very posh locality, but it has got its own drawbacks because there were double registrations those days. That means, the people who own the property were selling it to two or three people and then running away with money. So, [to] avoid that problem, I went through [an] auction to get the land. There was an auction by the government, and I went with 30,000 rupees—which is a lot of money in those days—and I sat there, and I got the land. Before I bought the plot, I checked the locality; [there was] nothing except one or two buildings when I saw it. [I] chose the corner plot, [then] I bid for the same property, [and luckily] I got it for a very, very cheap price compared to now. 

 

[From] there, I used to go on a moped, 18 kilometers from Secunderabad flat to the building area every day, then come back in the evening… So initially, I had a problem [with a] high tension wire running over the property over the land. [It] was very dangerous if people touched it, so I had to go and ask the local municipality to remove it or take it [and] put it in somewhere else. That took me almost three, four months of running around the offices. Then finally I got through [and] they made it safe. 

 

So, we started building it. I used to go there every day after I sent your mom and [my] kids to school. That went on for about eight months. So that house was finished. Then everybody shifted there. It was, you know, very difficult thing for me. But still I made it. [Your mom and her] grandparents shifted to that house, and [she] used to go from there, catch a bus, and go to her college [since] she was in university by that time. For every holiday [we] used to go visit our parents and then [your] mom [and] stay there [and] to give company to my parents. [That’s] the story honestly. Then when we decided before COVID [that] we will go and stay there or in the flat we have in Miyapur and settle there. But this COVID taught us a good lesson. 

 

If we go and if nobody can come when we are sick or something, then it will be a problem. [Also,] why should we go away from our family? Our people are here, but our minds [are] there. So, we decided against that. [It] was very difficult to manage that house, so we [had] to sell it. And I went through a lot of emotions, but it's for everybody's good. And that's it. This is the story of 35 years. Yeah. And you know, my parents were very happy, and your parents were very happy there. They all had a good time and they all stayed and then they passed away from their family. 

 

When I built the house. There [was] only one building and one little shop. Nothing [like] that now if you go and see. It is so busy; you can't even cross [the street it’s] that busy. It has become a shopping center next to us, and lots of schools and colleges and lots and lots of development [that you] can't even believe, you know. If you see what is built— [then and now]— [there’s a] humongous difference.

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Viddu Atha [2]

 

Me: So, how has your relationship with India changed over time?

 

Viddu Atha: So, bear with me, when I tell you a little bit about it. So, I was born here. Ramya Atha [3] was born in India. And then like, shortly after our parents moved, like maybe when she was five months old, I think they moved over here. So, my dad [did] a bunch of other jobs beforehand. I think you'll get that from him. But at some point, he joined the World Bank. And I think it was back in a time where they had this kind-of “grandfathered in” rule where they would fly you back home every summer, like you and your family. And it was like a very generous rule. So, every summer, he could fly back for free, flight tickets and everything. He, my dad, and my sister; and then eventually me after I was born. And that just like that rule never ended. I guess they didn't do that for everybody later on. But yeah, we were extremely lucky in that we got to go back every summer because the World Bank paid for it, because it was his way of seeing his family. That was part of the job, I guess, you know, like part of the benefits of the job. 

 

So, we would [travel] back once a year, every summer, and it was at least one month, sometimes up to three. For most summer breaks and most summers, it was all four of us. But sometimes, you know, my mom would travel with me, or I traveled with my dad. We’d have some combination of all of us. Then we would also be joined there by [your] mom, Deepu Atha, Vamsi Mama sometimes, like whoever's able to join.  [Whoever was] able to join just joined for the summer. It just became the thing that we did that was how we all got together. 

 

And you know, Jayattha and Prashanth mama's house—the Vanasthalipuram house— [was] the easiest place for all of us to gather especially because you know, Keku Thatha’s [4] dad and mom so like your great grandparents? That's where they lived full time. Rama Nani's mom—my maternal grandmother—she used to live in the US with us, actually; I think she was here for the first three or four years of my life. Then I think for health reasons and other things she moved back to India, [and] she lived with Rama Nani and Keku Thatha in his first ever apartment in Mumbai. 

 

So, whenever we would travel back to India, we would go first to Mumbai, because there were also no direct flights to Hyderabad; you would have to fly into Mumbai and then fly to Hyderabad from there. So, we would stay there for sometimes a week, maybe two. Then Rama Nani's big sister also lived in that house, [and] we still have that apartment, my parents first ever apartment in Bombay. So, we would go there, stay there a couple of weeks, and then we would take pretty much all of them to Hyderabad and then stay the rest of the summer in Hyderabad. So, we could be with all the grandparents. And yeah, that was like every summer up until, I don't know, maybe College for me. So like, up until I want to say like 2011-ish. 

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Deepu Pinni [5]

 

Me: I'm wondering, just from your perspective, returning to the house over time, how did it change for you between your visits? Of course, you went to the US for school and [returned] back home; what was [it] like going between those two spaces?

 

Deepu Pinni: At that stage, Vanasthalipuram used to be considered almost like in the outskirts. You know, it was [a place where], my goodness, you're so far away from anything. But now that has changed because Vanasthalipuram—and we were both there recently— has developed so much that a lot of people when you say [“Vanasthalipuram”] they know what you're talking about. They know that it is not considered necessarily to be in outskirts anymore. And it is it's very, very developed to the extent where this time when I went, even if you consider the shopping complexes or the shops that you might want to go to, they were out there, [and] you didn't really even have to go out of Vanasthalipuram to get anything. Everything that you need, you can get over there. 

 

There's no need to step out honestly. And I was really surprised because I had gone back after seven years—so that's a long time —it really took me by surprise this time…Yeah, no, I mean, it has changed tremendously. And the thing is, every time I went back, there'd be more and more and more and more change. But the thing is, it has gotten so the thing you don't want to see necessarily is that it's becoming overcrowded. But there's a lot I mean, it's just buzzing with activity. [Every time] I would go back from the US to go and visit Hyderabad to go visit Vanasthalipuram, I could see the growth. Just lots more shops; lots more houses, everywhere around us. [There are] more options for things. If you wanted to, say for example, go to the pharmacist, you [had] lots of options. And then supermarkets for your groceries and everything. 

 

So, there has been a lot of development over the years which is a good thing because the distance we used to have to travel [was so] much.  [From] Vanasthalipuram to go to Secunderabad [or] other places around Hyderabad [was a lot]. Whether it [was] for some work or some fun shopping or whatever, to go and visit someone and just resolve it [was far]. I mean, even now, obviously, there is a lot of travel time, right? Take you at least a good 30 [or] 45 minutes, but I previously [it used] to take less because there could have been less traffic. Nowadays, there's much more traffic. That's one of the observations, I think. 

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Ramya Atha

 

Ramya Atha: That's what I remember, every year it was, at minimum: my family, definitely [Jaya Atha], and then whomever was able to make it during that time. So, I mean, [what’s] interesting is that the house stayed consistent. But the landscape changed every time we went back, like the roads leading up to it [and] what was available on those roads. What was massive [back then] was when Internet became a thing, and then we used to walk to the internet cafe to send emails. You know, things changed. But our house stayed consistent and was constantly the space of sweet, sentimental family connection. 

 

It always had a sense of being a second home, because we all lived in other houses and other countries. So, to come together, and have such a strong sense of family, as a kid was really beautiful…When I was younger, when I was much, much younger, there seemed to be such a division between East and West, whether it was Eastern [or] Western values or Eastern or Western landscape. It was kind of cool starting to see how the West was influencing just what the city looked like, you know, what would come up because of it. It was interesting to see how the old, the new, [and] polar opposite ways of being just started to come together and fuse into something else. It was really cool. It's a big part of my childhood without a question.

 

Me: That East and West dynamic is not something that I've heard a lot in my discussions with other family; I was wondering if you could talk about the changing city, returning to the [Vanasthalipuram] house in—you know—a culture of change.

 

Ramya Atha: For a long, long time things kind of stayed as the status quo. However, [in] Vanasthalipuram, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, all the surrounding areas, it was kind of what we had always seen; it was very sweetly India. But the older I got, and the more visits I [went on, I noticed] more westernized restaurants making their way into these cities. I remember our first big experience: [we] went to some city [but it] wasn't Hyderabad. But it was something we went on a vacation to just kind of escape from Vanasthalipuram for a bit. And it was our first exposure to pizza, being in India, and it was Papa John's. So, we tried Papa John's, and then we tried Pizza Hut. And we were like, “what is this?” A piece of who we are, or what we're used to experiencing in the United States or in Australia, infiltrated what I thought would never infiltrate India, right? 

 

Like I had always been Indian Street Food and people would make pizzas. But it wasn't an established corporation that came in. We’re used to things like Coca Cola and things like that, but not an entire establishment being Western. So, it was really interesting to start to see Vanasthalipuram also take on some of those things, you know, and starting to see. Like I said, there was a cybercafe. I was in high school at that time. And it was the first time that internet was becoming popular in India. And for me, I remember the first time the technology made an appearance in the classroom was second grade for us in terms of a computer. I remember we had [a] snake game and we had to program it—as second graders—to move the snake. [So,] imagine it was my freshman year of high school, and we got our first gateway computer, and we had dial up. It took much longer for those sorts of things to reach the rest of the world. So, it was shocking and incredible when we had a cyber cafe. And I remember in some ways, Vanasthalipuram stayed the same in the sense that like, you know, [that] it's not safe for women to walk alone or anybody to walk alone. Like you'd always needed to go with company people were constantly scared. So, it wasn't like in terms of our experience, not much was different. But the cyber cafe itself, I was like, “this is cool.” I did not think Vanasthalipuram would be a place where a cyber cafe would even be available; like it was down the street from our house.

 

So, seeing how it was slowly making its way and now to see India like far surpass where, you know, so many other countries are, it's just incredible. So, what took time to make its way [to India] ended up taking on its own form and exploding in the best possible way, because India is so advanced now. [It] was just interesting to see two parts of my world come together. And at first there was some dissonance, but eventually it found integration. So that's what I mean by like the East and West. Now you can go to like there are shopping malls that are like full of McDonald's and all [that]. You see designer places: there’s a Gucci in India [and] that was usually something that was really reserved for the elite. It was for people who were incredibly rich, who had access to those resources. But now it's just available to everybody. So, it's just incredible how the culture has shifted so much you can still see a lot of traditionality of Indian culture, but you can see a lot of the Western influence to kind of it used to be at bay to a certain extent. And now it's like complete infiltration and integration of the two. It's just such an evolution.

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Mom [6]

 

That home was our anchor—for both sets of my grandparents, my mother and her three siblings, all of whom were in different parts of the world, for me, my siblings and my cousins, and eventually for my own children. It was a place where, even as the city came to make our exurb a suburb, as the Metrorail crept towards us, as the malls expanded and the cafes moved in with their Wi-Fi connections, it was a place where time slowed down and all that mattered and important was found inside the gates of the house.  Where my cousins, siblings and I played and made mischief, sneaking “chicken 65” up to the rooftop for midnight feasts, away from the strict eyes of our Bramhin grandmother, my children found delight in running wild with the neighborhood kids and gorging on summer mangos.  My grandparents and parents told us stories of their lives and watched us all with our sunburnt, dusty mango-covered faces, create lives and memories, and weave our family’s history.