Vijayawada: The US Presidential elections has brought cheer in Telugu states for Usha Chilikuri, the spouse of Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, comes with familial links with Andhra Pradesh. Usha is the granddaughter of the renowned professor Chilukuri Santhamma, who served at Andhra University and was well-known in Visakhapatnam until last year. As Usha steps into this new role alongside her husband and US Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance, she carries with her the pride of her Telugu roots. She will be the first woman of Indian origin to be America’s second lady.Usha’s ancestral village is Saipuram in the Krishna district. Decades ago, her ancestors migrated to various regions, while the Chilikuri family has roots dating back to the 18th century with the renowned scholar Buchipapayya Chilikuri. Usha is part of a lineage of educated individuals, with family members excelling in various academic fields. Usha’s great-grandfather Veeravadhanlu had five children — Rama Shastry, Suryanarayana Shastry, Subrahmanya Shastry, Venkateswarlu, and Gopalakrishnamurthy — all were highly educated.Rama Shastry migrated to Madras and worked as a professor at IIT Madras. His wife was Balatripura Sundari, and they had three sons — Avadhani, Narayanashastri and Radhakrishna and a daughter Sharada.While all three sons settled in America, Sharada settled in Chennai as a doctor. Radhakrishna, who has completed aeronautical engineering, is working at the University of San Diego. He was married to Lakshmi from Pammarru and their child was Usha.Usha is related to many families in Visakhapatnam. Prof Santhamma, upon learning about Vance’s nomination and their familial connection, expressed her happiness. She mentioned that Usha’s parents settled in the United States long ago and that Usha was largely unaware of her connections back in India. A proud Santhamma highlighted that many of her relatives are holding high positions in various organisations in the US, and feels proud of Usha and her husband having reached this level.Professor Santhamma’s husband Chilukuri Subrahmanya Shastry, who worked as a Telugu professor, died a few years ago. Usha was the daughter of Radhakrishna, the son of Rama Shastry. Rama Shastry is the brother of Subrahmanya Shastry, which makes Usha a grandneice of Professor Santhamma.Prof Santhamma said Usha was born and brought up in the United States and was not familiar with her Indian roots. Santhamma revealed that many people congratulated her on the phone when they came to know about Vance’s candidacy and their kinship.
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