LITLE SATHYANARAYANA BECAME THE DARLING of the entire
village. Pedda Venkama Raju's house was always full of visitors who came on
some pretext, but stayed on to sing lullabies to Sathyanarayana, rock his
cradle and shower him with caresses-forgetting their humdrum lives.
Subbamma, the first wife of the village Karnam, Lakshminarayana Rao, had
a special affection for Sathya. She was elderly and childless. Hoping for
heirs, the Karnam took a second wife, Kamalamma. The homes of the Rajus and the
Karnam were two houses away. The Karnam was of the Brahmin caste, to which, as
custom dictated, people of all other castes made ceremonial obeisance. As
Karnam, he was the hereditary village accountant in charge of land records and
the collection of land tax on behalf of the Government. The pious lady,
Subbamma, would be known to the world as Sathya's 'foster' mother. Long before
Sathya's birth “Easwaramma and Subbamma had agreed: if either one of them had a
male child, he would be named Sathyanarayana. Subbamma never had a child. A son
was born to Easwaramma, however, and she named him Sathyanarayana.”
When Sathya was an infant, Subbamma would pick him up
and hug him to her bosom. As the Karnam's family ate only vegetarian food,
Subbamma would call Sathya to her kitchen and feed him lovingly, much to the
dislike of those who did not like a Kshatriya (warrior caste) boy being fed in
a Brahmin family. “This is a Brahmin child!” other women would say, both in
wonder and fun, witnessing the enthusiasm with which Sathya would go to
Subbamma.
Subbamma would sometimes gather all the toddlers on
her open terrace, in the evening. She would mix all the usual dishes of the
evening meal and then lovingly feed morsels from·the great mix to all of them,
including Sathya. She would say,
“This one morsel is for the cow, this one more morsel
is for the crow...” and so on, as many Indian mothers do when they feed their
children, coaxing them to eat an extra mouthful.
There were other times when Subbamma would call Sathya
to the terrace and secretly feed him with savouries like pakodas, from her
window-which overlooked the terrace of the Raju house. During one such 'secret'
feeding, as she asked Sathya to open his mouth to pour water into it, Subbamma saw the magnificent spectacle of
the entire creation: great celestial bodies revolving on their cosmic course, all amazingly
contained inside the little mouth. Subbamma had a fright and was lost in a
state of ecstasy for days on end. This was the first time she had a glimpse of
this extraordinary side of Sathya and she clung to little Sathya's feet and
washed them with her tears.
Sathyanarayana, or Sathya, as he was now fondly
called, sometimes gazed at the big kumkum mark on the forehead of his
mother. He would often touch the red mark and smile, but it was never
disturbed. He delighted in having broad vibhuti (holy ash) markings with
a kumkum dot in the centre of his own forehead, though his mother rarely
agreed to this application of the kumkum, for fear of the 'evil eye.'
Therefore, Sathya had to seek out his sisters' belongings and apply a dab of kumkum
himself.
At the time he started eating solid food, he had a
natural aversion for nonvegetarian dishes. Invariably, he would later repair
to his grandfather, Kondama Raju, and eat with him. The aged grandparents took
great pride in feeding their saintly little grandson. The neighbors called him 'Brahmajnani’
because of his aversion to violence and love towards all creation. When the
village urchins would carry a hen hanging upside down or kick a dog in Sathya's
presence, Sathya would feel miserable. Yet, he would never complain to anyone
about it. He avoided places of animal slaughter and fishing yards. When a bird
was selected as a future meal, “...Sathyanarayana the little boy, would run
towards it...clasp it to [his] ... bosom and fondle it as if the extra love
[he] ... poured on it would induce the elders to relent and spare the fowl.”
His heart would melt at human suffering, too. Whenever
a beggar appeared at the door and raised his cry, Sathya would stop his play
and rush in, to cajole his sisters to give the beggar some food. The adults
were not willing to put up with this endless kindness to beggars. Sometimes
Easwaramma would catch hold of him and with a finger raised in warning, say, “’Look
here! You may give him food; but, mind you, you will have to starve.’ That
would not daunt the child; he used to run inside and bring out food to the
hungry man at the door; [and, then]... stay away from [his meal], ... himself.
Nothing and nobody could persuade him to come to his plate, which was left
untouched!” Even as a toddler, when he heard a beggar cry, he would crawl to
the main entrance of the Raju's house and look imploringly at the elders, his
eyes beseeching them to feed the hungry person.
In addition, when Sathya refused food and persisted in
the refusal for days, he showed no signs of starvation. He would insist that an
old man had fed him sumptuously with balls of milk-rice. He patted his stomach
contentedly, to show that it was full. As a proof, he held out his right hand
for his mother to smell, and she inhaled from the tiny palm the unmistakable
fragrance of ghee, milk and curds, of a type unknown to her. The mystery of the
'old man' was never solved.
“When Sathya began running about in the street, he
sought out the maimed, the blind, the decrepit and the diseased, and led them
by the hand to the doorstep of the ... [parents' home.] ... [His] ... sisters
had to [retrieve] from the store or the kitchen some grain or [other] food and
put it into the beggar's bowl while 'the little master' looked on, gladly.”
At the age of three, Sathya's head was shaved and his
ears pierced, a practice called for by custom. When his hair grew into silken
curls as before, Sathya would keep them impeccably combed, like other boys of
his age. The beautiful curls remained but grew even longer-as seen in his later
years.
Sathya was held up as an ideal example before the
children; soon they started calling him Guru. The elders found this out on a
Ramanavami festival. Late at night, Sathya's sisters discovered that their
little brother was not at home, and a search was launched. It was past midnight and the family
feared for Sathya's safety. A procession was wending its way along the village,
with the invigorating music of the pipers and drummers in a pageant rousing the
sleeping villagers. It stopped just outside the Raju family's doorstep.
A huge picture of Sri Rama was displayed on a
flower-bedecked bullock cart, with a priest seated next to it, waving camphor
flames in worship. To their disbelief, the ladies of the house saw five-year
old Sathya, brightly dressed, sitting in simple majesty under the decorated
picture. The Raju family asked Sathya's companions why he was seated there and
not walking with them on the road. "He is our Guru," promptly came
the reply.
Sathya had been introduced to the alphabet in the
ritual manner. P. T. Krishnamachari, one of the few educated men of the
village, living opposite to Pedda Venkama Raju's house, performed the Akshara
abhyaasa (initiation into the use of the alphabet) ceremony for him.
Sathya's parents decided that he should be formally educated. He was sent to
the Government-aided Elementary School in the village.
Venkatasubba Raju and Venkatarama Raju, sons of Kondama Raju’s brother
Subba Raju, taught at the school. Sathya’s schoolmate, Talipineni Kesappa,
would remember in later years that Sathya had the unique ability to sing and
dance with great proficiency, even at the elementary school.
