My grand children

My first daghter Vasundhara and son-in-law Ganesh currently stay in Guntur. I took this photo during my recent visit ( 22nd Feb 2007).

My Grandson chy. Akshay (born: 26th june 1998) and Chy. Archana ( born: 04th july 2004 )

Photos from past

My Father and I (1953) & my Mother

 Peddannayya               Chinna            Buchi 

 Ramam                 Kameswari            Bava Garu

Janaki

Family Tree

'Sonti' is an illustrious family name in Andhra and branches of this family are spread all over the world. Sonti Venkata Ramana, the famous music teacher of Tyagaraja might be one of our ancestors. How our family migrated from Tanjore, Tamilnadu to Vizag and Berhampur districts is a mystery. Perhaps these Brahmin families might have migrated due to lack of royal patronage.

So, let us start our story from Aska.

Our branch has its roots in Aska (Berhampur). My late father Shri Sonti Ramana (1901 -1980) was born in Aska and I understand from him that he has spent a few years there during his childhood.

His father and my late grandfather, Shri Sonti Suryanarayana(1840 -1905) was in government service, but resigned when transferred to a place 100 kilometers away (a very long distance in those times). He married my grand mother Sonti Narasamma (1870 -1955) when she was 6 months old. My father was their seventh child. Six children before him died during birth or at small age (reasons unknown). Four years after my father’s birth, my grand father expired, leaving a young widow and a small child. My father had a younger brother Sonti Narashima murthy who was born after the death of his father.

My father had undergone very difficult financial circumstances during his childhood. His uncle’s son - Sripada Apparao who was working at that time as a magistrate, raised him. To cut a long story short, my father struggled all along. It is amazing how he had completed his studies to become one of the very few Mathematics Graduates in 1920. His determination to succeed and his superior intelligence might be the reasons for his success. Under those circumstances, many people would have given it up. All his life he was connected with education. He started his career as a teacher and retired as a District Educational Officer. In 1930s he wrote a mathematics text book for students of a training college. He has provided good education to all his sons. In fact, Janaki and I were his students in Y.R.high school, Parchuru where he served as head master after retirement. He taught English and Mathematics in fifth and sixth form.

He married my mother Sonti subbamma (1911 -1957) when she was 11 years old. I believe the marriage was held in 1921. My mother belongs to Mangipudi family of Chodavaram. My late grand father Mangipudi Lakshmi Narayana was an advocate. My mother was their first daughter. I think she attended elementary school and completed 4th class. My mother could write and read Telugu very well.

We are seven brothers and three sisters. We lost two brothers and one sister when they were very young. I am the youngest child of my parents (see in the order below).

Sonti Narasigarao (SVN Rao), we called him Peddannayya (1923 - 1998)
S.V.S.Rao, we call him Chinnannayya was born in 1926
SVLN Rao, we called him Buchhannayya (1928 -1999)
Kameswari (a very beautiful woman of her times!) was born in 1935

SVS Ramarao, we call him Ramam was born in 1939
Janaki was born in 1943
Ramakrishna Sonti was born in 1946

My mother died at very young age of 46 in 1957 (I was only 10 and Janaki 13). Our family could never recover from that loss. Kameswari, who was only 22 years old at that time became my mother and looked after me all along. Kameswari and our Bavagaru - Shri A.V.R.J.Sarma (born 1927) played a pivotal role in our upbringing. They performed the marriages of Janaki and mine.

Marriages in the family and addition to our family.

The marriage of my first brother, Peddannayya was held in 1943 with Rajaratnam (whom all of us call as peddavadina).

We also brought into family China Vadina (sridevi) in 1945 and Buchi Vadina (Punnamma) in 1946.

Kameswari’s marriage was held in 1951 and our bavagaru is a source of strength to all of us.
Janaki’s marriage with A.L.Mohan (born in 1939) was held at Kotauratla at Kameswari’s house. Kamewari and Bavagaru helped my father to organize this marriage. My second Bavagaru, A.L.Mohan was a great addition into our family. He is a very good Mathematics teacher and a very helpful person. He helped me to join in chemical engineering.
My fourth brother, Ramam’s marriage with Savitri was conducted in 1963. Savitri is a good teacher and strict principal of a school. My father was very fond of her because they belonged to the same profession - Teaching.
My marriage was held in 1972 with Girija at Anakapalle. My sister Kameswari and Bavagaru took leading role in arranging and performing my marriage.

Sadly, among the above, Peddannayya, Peddavadina, Buchi and China Vadina are no more with us. Already time is taking away some of our near and dear people.

Generation Next

Peddannanyya's family
The eldest of next generation Sontis is Murali, the first son of Peddannanyya. He has three brothers, Ramana, Sunderrao and Subbaraju.

Murali (also known as Krishnarao Sonti) is almost of my age. His marriage was held one week after my marriage in june 1972, with Vijaya. They left to USA the same year and now live at north Potomic, M.D. Murali works for the federal government and Vijaya works for NASA. They have two sons, srinivas and Rajeev. Srinivas is married and blessed with a small boy (perhaps the youngest Sonti in our family!). Rajeev is a brilliant boy and has joined Stanford. He is one of the Generation Next’s Bright hopes.

Ramana Sonti is at Visakhapatnam. He is happily married and blessed with two girls. One of them just joined XLRI! Sundararao lives in Bangalore and Subbaraju is in US.

Chinnannayya's family
Chinnannayya has two sons and one daughter. Their names are SVS Ramarao (chinna Ramam), Ramana and Subba Lakshmi.

ChinnaRamam, is in a very senior position in BARC, Bombay. He is one of the most brilliant Sontis. He has gold medals in B.E. My brother, Chinna stays with him.

Second son Venkata Ramana is working in the audit department of Karnataka state and stays at Bangalore.

His sister Subbalakshmi is married to Vedula Sastry garu, who was a wing commander of Indian Air force. Both their children are dental surgeons.

Buchhannayya's family
Buchhannayya has two sons and both are Doctors - Mahesh and Ramana (spells his name as Sonty). Both of them are married.

Mahesh and his wife Dr. Jayalakshmi are at Hyderabad.

Ramana Sonty lives in New York, USA. A doctor by profession he is now a Sr. Director in Pfizer. Dr. Nomita Sonty, wife of Ramana is working as an assistant professor at Columbia University. They have a son named Kartik.

Ramam's family
Ramam has two Children - Amulya and Ramana.

Ramana Sonti is another brilliant Sonti son. He has a brilliant academic record topped with a MBA from IIM-B. He has received his doctorate and worked for few years in USA. Now he has returned to Hyderabad and joined International business School. His wife, Deepti, an equally a brilliant girl with wonderful academic record, worked long years in GM, Detroit, and is settling down at Hyderabad. Their beautiful daughters - Sahiti & Samhita are one of the brilliant Generation Next Sonti girls.

Amulya is married to Siva Ramakrishna and stays at Kakinada. Both of them are working and their only son is preparing for entrance tests.

Kameswari's family
Kameswari has three sons and one daughter - Vijaya, Subbarao, Sudha Nageswara Rao and Lakshmi (the eldest).

Lakshmi’s marriage with Chandrasekhar was held in 1975 (He was my batch mate in Andhra university). Chandrashekar worked in Singapore for many years before relocating to USA and is currently working in Houston. Sashi was married to Pallavi in 2005 and lives in Houston as well. Mahi works in Austin.

Vijaya, my nephew stay in Seattle. He and his wife work for federal government. Their two daughters are studying.

Subbarao, the second son of my sister stays at Vizianagaram . He has two children Sai and Raja both are in the school. His wife Lakshmi works in a school.

Sudha, the last son of my sister works at Hyderabad. He has two children both of them are studying in school. His wife is also working in Hyderabad.

Janaki's family
Janaki closely resembles my mother. Among all of us, she is the one who is very sober and “muddaralu”. Janaki has four daughters and one son - Chamundi, Subhadra, Annapurna and Arundhati and Kamesh. All of Janaki's children are married.

One of the greatest tragedies that occurred in our family is the death of Chamundi, a bright and beautiful young girl. She died in 1986 at the age of 24, giving sorrow to all of us.

My family

We are blessed with three daughters, Vasundhara, Sowdamini and Anuradha.

My first daughter, Vasundhara is married to Guntur Ganesh, who works in Indian army as a Lt. Colonel. I have two wonderful grand children, Akshay and Archana.

Sowdamini works for Schering - plough at Memphis and is married to Swapnil Afzalpurkar, who is also working there.

My third daughter Anuradha Sonti works for IBM, Pune. That is all about me.

About us
We Sontis’ share a few things in common - our liking for Gummidikaya pacchi vadiyalu, Kandipachadi, Bellam pappu and bellam avakaya.

By nature, all Sonti men and women are good cooks and fond of good food. Sonti members are vocal, extrovert and talkative. Highly independent in their views, emotional and short-tempered. And all are very good story tellers. One has to see how Peddannayya and Bucchi used to talk. All the children would sit around them to hear.
All Sontis’ are intelligent (though some more than the others), avid readers and love music.

Although all of us are very good in studies, special mention should be made about China and Buchi. Buchi got a gold medal in M.Sc. and has doctorates in two different subjects. During his long career at IIT, Khargapur, he has produced over 25 doctorates and over 100 research publications. Above all, he has pioneered a new subject “Computer Geology”.

Chinna, on the other hand developed tremendous interest in Telugu literature and has written a book. He is the only one in our family who has written a book on literature. Now, he is working on another book on “Science and philosophy “

This is a quick update on us Sontis’. I would have missed a few Sontis’ since i do not have enough information but would love to add them to our family tree as i get more details.

*** To all Sontis - Please post any details i have missed. Also, post some of the following information
Birth years of all the family members
E-mail I.Ds
Children’s photos, Family photos, Group photos (recent and old )
Important events to share - joys and sorrows
Visits to India ( If living abroad)

Memories from past, or those you would like to share with your Sonti family

“Let us all rediscover ourselves !!!”