Thursday, January 19, 2006

Someone help me...

George Chandy and C. Chandy are two children of Administrator K. Chandy, one of the two well-known Malayali families who served the Mysore Maharaja. The other was my grandfather, Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan, also known around Mysore and Kerala as Mysore Matthan.

I know quite a bit about the history of the Kuriyan Matthan family in Mysore (which became Karnataka), but someone has posed a question about the equally famous K. Chandy family of Mysore.

Both K. Chandy and Mysore Matthan graduated from Madras Christian College, K. Chandy being one year ahead of Mysore Matthan. Both sat the Indian Civil Service Examination. K. Chandy, in his year, came first and joined the Mysore Civil Service. A year later Mysore Matthan followed him into the Mysore Civil Service. Both of them excelled and set the seeds for the Malayalis to enter into various walks of like in the then Mysore State.

I received this email from someone in the US:

Hi,

I'm Yorjai Chandy.

My brother Yohann and I are sons of George Sagman Chandy.

G S Chandy and Mammen George Chandy [his brother] are sons of Mr Chandy [Mysore Electricity and Telephones] who had several siblings.

The only names I remember are Commisioner C Chandy, Johnny Chandy [Railways] and Aunty Susy Varghese.

Question: The names seem familiar. Is there somewhere that I fit in the family? Is this family connected with my family?

Thank you for the information,

Yorjai


Brothers Sagman and Dumbo are the sons of George Chandy and Dr. Mrs. Chandy. George Chandy was in the Mysore Electricity Department and was my dad's boss till my dad moved to Bombay. Dr. Chandy was our family doctor when we lived in Bangalore in the 50s.

Cousins of Sagman and Dumbo, Mohan and Jagan, are the sons of Police Commissioner C. Chandy. They had one sister. Mohan served in the Indian Navy and was Captain (Commander) of one of India's submarines, having been trained in Russia. When Mohan was in Bombay (he was also for a time on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant) he used to be a frequent Sunday lunchtime visitor at our home. He spoke fluent Russian. Younger brother, Jagan's daughter, Mirai was the classmate of our daughter, Susanna, in Bishop Cotton Girl's School in Bangalore, finishing in 1983.

I have some parts of the history of these four cousins who were great family friends when I lived in Bangalore. But my memory is quite sketchy.

Can anyone out there fill me up on as much of the history of the great Mysore Chandy family so that I can help out the greatgrandson of this great personality?

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