Bouloussou family


The Bouloussou family of Yanam is one of the prominent native families in Yanam, Puducherry, since, French Indian era. Many members of that family have been successful in politics and engineering. Some others include that of Kamichetty, Mazety, Madimchetty, Nallam, Bezawada, Manyam etc.

Origin

The people of surname Bouloussou/Bulusu belong to Telugu Brahmins of smarta tradition with Gautama sagotra and adhere to Āpastamba Dharmasūtra from the Taittīriya śākhā of Krishna Yajurveda. The difference in orthography of the name is due to French and English translations, where it is written as Bouloussou in the former and Bulusu in the latter. As per narration in Narayaneeyam written by Sri Kalluri Venkata Subrahmanya Deekshitulu, the original folk bearing this surname used to reside within the Kakatiya domain and the surname came from a common Telugu dish pulusu, which implies a spicy tamarind sauce in Telugu states. This surname over a period of time changed to Bulusu and the Islamic invasions forced the folk to move towards velanadu region. The any smarta vaidiki brahmin who resided in that region started to be referred traditionally as Velanati vaidika or recently in modern times as Vaidika velanatlu.
The paternal ancestors of this Bouloussou family hail from nearby Ainapuram village situated the other side of Gautami Godavari river in the Konaseema region of Andhra Pradesh. Hence, they refer themselves as Ainapuram Bulusu to distinguish themselves from other Bulusu families. When and how this family moved to nearby French colony of Yanaon remains unknown.

Prominent persons

was politician, judge advocate at Yanam during early twentieth century. He was Diwan of Manyam Zamindar and was actively involved in the administration of committee of Vishnu and Siva Temples. He later went on to become a landlord in Yanam. His popularity later paved way for his plunge into Yanam politics. Later his elder son Bulusu Jaganadha Sastry was a prominent engineer from Yanam before Independence. B. J. Sastry was among on the earliest life members of the Indian Science Congress Association, a premier scientific organisation of India. Great-grandson of Bouloussou Soubramaniom Sastroulou, Bulusu Krishna Chaitanya is an Indian engineer and researcher.
The native families of Yanam sponsor the Yanam Venkanna Babu Kalyāṇōtsavam festival. On the eighth day of that festival, Vāhanam of the day will be Panchamukha Ānjaneya Vāhanam, i.e., The Five-headed Anjaneya Chariot. The Bulusu family were original sponsors of that day. Later it was handed to the Bhupatiraju family. Other prominent native families who are sponsors of this festival are Bezawada, Singamsetty, Nallam, Grandhi and Kamichetty, etc.
After independence of French India in 1962, none of them opted for restoration of French nationality. Also, the family surname has been anglicised as Bulusu and their names too as per English orthography.

Family tree

Previous generation before prominence