One has to believe that Janardhanam hailed from Visakhapatnam district. We do not have any documentary evidence to support this claim. He belonged to a time that is more than one century old to our time. We hardly find any record of ordinary people who lived in these times. One has to collect pieces of data obtained orally and join them together to get an insight into those lives. Most of his relatives have names originally belonging to this district. We do not know much about his family, since he lost his parents when he was very young, and he could not recall much about his ancestors. His mother died of a jungle fever, and his father groomed him to be an able-bodied young man. Janardhanam was strong and intelligent. He was a master of several skills that were normally known only to nomads frequenting forest areas. He learnt cultivation from his father. He was well-versed in all farm activities: tilling, casting seeds, and harvesting. He could climb tall trees for collecting toddy, hunt for wild animals in deep forests, and swim in fresh water lakes with ease and grace. He used to participate in all the martial arts events for the Dasara festival every year in his village. He had his own set of kingly weapons like bow and arrow and a country-made gun. He and his father used to cut wood from the forest for cooking. They used to sell some of the excess wood to outsiders in the weekend-bazaar at a fair price There is enough evidence to show that Janardhanam came from a well-to-do respectful family, and never had to face the pangs of poverty due to any of the famines in that area.
Janardhanam was the only child of a farmer living in a forest village bordering on the areas connecting Visakhapatnam and Rajahmundry districts. His early childhood was spent in forests, hills, and sea coasts. He led an adventurous life in the wilderness of deep forests. He accompanied his father to the weekend-bazaar where they sold the food items they collected from land and forest. His father seems to have contacts with some low-level English officers.His father seems to have friends who loved books. Janardhanam never went to school. There were no schools in his time. He faintly recalls having learned to write by tracing letters in sand under the guidance of an old Brahmin. He learned to read and write before he came to Visakhapatnam town. He could sign in English though he did not know any English. Janardhanam could read sign boards written in Telugu script and interpret their meaning.
He had a house of his own. Everyone had a house in his time unless one chose to be a nomad. There was no dearth for good food and other creature comforts unless a famine did violence to their area. Unlike the dwellers of the plains, people of his area could feed themselves with forest produce even during times of intense famine. His father died of some unknown jungle ailment when Janardhanam was about 15. He was comforted by his neighbours and some distant relatives. He learned to live alone. He befriended a boy from Visakhapatnam and learned the basics of carpentry. He made a few simple household furniture items and sold them to the English. Janardhanam and his carpenter friend worked with an English family for a year. Wooden items did not interest Janardhanam. He believed that big is beautiful. He wanted to build big houses like those he saw in Visakhapatnam. He wanted to build tall erect houses with brick and limestone. He succeeded in building a small brick house for an English man with the help of his carpenter friend. If things had gone this way, he would never have left his own place. One day he met a young girl Ramanujamma in the weekend-bazaar. She told him of a great bridge being constructed on river Godavari in Rajahmundry district.
