It’s only fitting that an engineering marvel such as Namma Metro should first run through Byappanahalli, a hamlet that was once gifted to the ancestor of Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, engineer par excellence.

Wonderful nuggets of history came to light when the seventh generation of Sir M Visvesvaraya’s family — the Byappanahalli clan that lives in Jayanagar — was putting together their family tree on the occasion of their matriarch’s hundredth birthday. Savithramma, now 102, is the wife of late Byappanahalli Mokshagundam Lakshmipathaiah. She has eight children, some 15 grandchildren and over 20 great-grandchildren and is the oldest in the clan.

“I’ve heard there is a 112-year-old person in Karnataka. People of our generation are stronger and healthier,’’ said the toothless grand old lady, who eats ragi mudde for meals and can chew chakkli-kodbele (local snacks) with her gums! Barring a recent hip bone fracture which has bound her to the wheelchair, the centenarian is otherwise healthy and her memory razor sharp.

“Tracing the family tree was tough, but we did it,’’ said M Chandrashekar, Savithramma’s son.

Their search for roots through black-and-white pictures and inputs from the oldest surviving members culminated in a comprehensive family tree that originated from Mokshagundam village.

The roots

The Mokshagundam family gets its name from a village in Andhra Pradesh from where Sir M Visvesvaraya’s family hails. Several generations before MV, Lakshmipathi Bhatta was the Dewan of Doddabyrappa, the chieftain (Palegaara) of Avathi near Chikballapur.

The chieftain was so impressed with his Dewan’s work that he gifted him three villages — Byappanahalli, Muddenahalli and Bandepalli, all falling along the Bangalore-Kolar stretch. Bhatta’s property was inherited by three grandsons — Byappanahalli by Chikkavenkappa, Muddenahalli by Thimmappa Shastry, the great grandfather of Sir MV, and Bandepalli by Muddukittappa.

Byappanahalli’s growth

Once a hamlet tucked away between Bangalore and Hoskote, Byappanahalli, later associated with public sector undertaking NGEF, was considered the city’s farthest end. Over the years, it came to be looked upon as Indiranagar’s poorer cousin. But today, Byappanahalli is almost the heart of the city, with Namma Metro connecting this once-anonymous village bursting at its seams with the central business district. After the Metro was commissioned, realty prices shot north, touching Rs 7,000 per sqft.

Savithramma’s sons recall how their father — an amaldar (now called tahsildar) in the erstwhile British and Karnataka governments — would always talk about the family’s lands in Byappanahalli that went unclaimed.
“Since the entire village belonged to our clan, the family had huge tracts of lands. In fact, my father used to often say that we should have searched for the properties and got possession. Of course, nobody really put their heads together and since then, the lands must have changed many hands,’’ said M Prabhakar, retired HoD from the Government Women’s Polytechnic College.

The lands may have gone, but the memories remain. “As far as we remember, my father and Visvesvaraya’s son were in touch with each other and we have a  picture of them together,’’ said Chandrashekar.

Visvesvaraya, who constructed the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mysore and was knighted commander of the British Indian Empire by King George V, is held in high esteem in the international engineering circuit. In fact, his birth anniversary which falls on September 15 is celebrated as Engineers’ Day in India.

Savithramma’s husband used to talk about the family’s lands that went unclaimed

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by S. Kushala / Mar 04th, 2012