తాతాచార్ల కథలు దుగ్గిశెట్టి కొడుక్లు : Tatharla Katha Duggishettys sons English Version

Tatharla Katha -

Duggishettys sons 

English Version

Stories of Tatacharlu, narrated to Charles Philip Brown during the year 1842. Brown published these stories in 1855. Many Telugu people also do not know about the existence of these stories. A collection with annotations was printed by Emesco in 1974. I am bringing to you one story at present as a sampler. The English sounds peculiar. So is the Telugu for its regionality and the time of narration, that is more than a century and a half old. Listen to it and read it and enjoy! I will try to bring more such stories in the future to you.

Sons of Duggisettys   Thirty years back, in the Nellore area, in the village Damaramadugu, there was a businessman in the community, and his name was Duggishetty Varu. . Since they were totally poor they use to eke out their livelihood by pounding paddy for a wage, carrying sacks and selling salt. An old man of the clan had two sons. As they grew up and were doing the work that their father used to do and kept the father at home without any difficulty to him, and treating him well, Pendari horse battalion came to the country for plunder.   One horseman from that group, with all the golden items, silver ornaments, pearls, gems, corundum, varahaa coins, rupayyas stolen from the families of rich people, in a sack balanced on both sides of the horse, came to this village and while going in the lane next to the house of this businessman, entered into the back yard of the house. There was a well there. Just at short distance from it, there was a haystack. In that tub, there was full water that the house owner brought out from the well to wash the clothes.   Because of the fear of the battalions coming, all the villagers migrated out of there. Then people of that house also went away. Only the komati old man, since not able to run along with all the others, sent his sons telling them go somewhere and live, he himself hiding in the haystack.   Then the battalion horseman, since his horse was tired because of full hunger and thirst, seeing that, by God’s will there was necessary grass in the garden and necessary water in the tub, drank some water from the tub himself, made the horse drink it, pulled out some grass from the haystack and put it before the horse, and before it ate wanted to enter the house and take any jewelry if available, the horseman entered the house.   Then the old businessman hiding in this haystack, since there was no one there, looked four sides, came out, touched the jewel sack on that horse, thinking that by the grace of the God, time has come for the poverty getting solved, if I push this bag into the well, and drive away the horse through this way and hide in the haystack as earlier, let us look what will happen as per our luck, drove that horse near to the well, pushed that bag into the well, untied the horse, drove it away, and hid himself as was earlier.   The horseman thinking that he has to keep quiet till the horse eats grass and satisfies itself, entered two or three houses near that house, searched trunks, pots shelves crevices nooks bundle rooms and granaries and tied up  things of his choice and came near his horse with them. Since that horse was not there, he was very depressed and thought, what is this, there are no people here, who untied this horse or may be  has it got released itself or our own fellows came here and released it and took it, nothing is known, went looking for the horse.   After that what happened to the horseman is not known. After two or three days the disturbance of the battalion got over and they all came back to their respective homes. After that this Komati old man also thinking daily that there is wealth in that well to kill his poverty and was looking into the well at every step in the name of drawing water, day and night was thinking of that only, spent a month with patience since one day all in the house have gone to the next village for the gods annual festival, thinking that there is no rush, stopped both his sons from going to that festival that day in the night, after midnight came near the well and pulled out that bag after tying it to the water drawing ropes, took it to the house, when opened that bundle and saw, as there were very good glowing ornaments, enjoyed extreme happiness, burnt that bag in fire without any traces left put the ornaments in an earthen pot, buried under the water tub next to the well, took out some cash from the lot and kept it at a different place for using when required, and continued the business which is their castes profession  and making it known to the outside that they are borrowing money from someone and internally continued developing according to the advice of the old man.   After the death of the old man, the two brothers shared it equally and were happy with properties. Even though the matter was a great secret, it was known to all the people in the area and became a rumor. This is wonderful information.