Image and Narrative contributed by Dr. Vishnu Sharma Kesaraju, Boston, USA

This photograph may have been taken in Warangal, Hyderabad State, (now Telangana, India) or Garla, Hyderabad State, (now Telangana India) more than hundred years ago, circa 1910.

The old man in the photograph is Mateti Ramanujana Rao and his wife Cheruku Ranganayakamma. And they were my great great grandparents. The origin and journey of this photograph tells a tale of middle class family in the southern region.

Matati Ramanujana Rao worked as a Jemadar, equivalent to today’s head constable, in Warangal Central Jail under the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Siddiqi Bayafandi’s rule. In a Muslim dominated state, being a Brahmin/Hindu didn’t helped his upward mobility, but since he was a salaried person, he could afford a photograph. I don’t know much about his life, but that he was survived by two sons and four daughters. Both his sons were Patwaris (village administrators) and my paternal grandmother is the daughter of one of his sons.

When my father visited his native village Garla, (formerly Hyderabad State), he discovered the glass plate negative of this photograph in the trash. Grasping its heritage and family value, he tried, albeit in vain, to convince his relatives to take care of it. Later, he took it upon himself to develop it into a photographic print at a photo studio in Jammu (of Jammu & Kashmir), where he was stationed as an Airman in the Indian Air Force. He even distributed copies of the photo to all his relatives to increase the chance of its survival. After a decade or so, the glass negative broke, but the photo was safe in our family album. Interestingly, almost all other copies of this photograph were lost, either by negligence or the relatives decided to not hold on to it.

Around 20 years ago, my parents returned to Hyderabad, Telangana, and it seems that our last surviving photographic print of this image was misplaced, moreover it even got forgotten. I remember, a decade later, when I got married and was settled in Boston, my wife was displaying her childhood photos on the refrigerator, and wondered if I wanted to add some of my own. I called up my father to send me some of my childhood pictures, but during that conversation, I mentioned this obscure old photograph in our family album. My father turned his house upside down and found it. He photographed this image with a smart-phone, but yet again, somehow we lost the print and today it exists only as a digital photograph.

I never met this man or his wife. I only know them as my ancestors, my great great grandparents. However, my father and I have somehow felt strongly about holding onto this photograph, for as long as we can, and today we share it with the world. This photograph is a testament of our heritage, and our origins in remote and rural parts of the south, to the north of India and onto overseas shores.

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