A man of old values

Hailing from Neeleshwar in Kerala, he is one of the few surviving Gandhians of the time.
As a Grama Sevak, he had worked for the welfare of underprivileged families of various faiths and backgrounds at Vorkady near Manjeshwar. He gave up his government job as a Grama Sevak, to take up social work in the early 60s. His lifetime work resulted in the birth of Dharmanagar, the model colony that he founded in the village of Vorkady near Manjeshwar.

Created out of 200 acres of barren land, 80 families were rehabilitated here along
Gandhian lines.

An ardent admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, he had concentrated all his efforts on solving the problems of the people, including poverty and those related to sustainable agriculture. He has followed the Gandhian way in this. As a Grama Sevak, he had to look after the welfare of 10 villages. The work involved visits to the fields and houses of farmers, inducing them to adopt scientific ways of cultivation, helping the landless poor, especially from the backward castes, get government wasteland, and providing villagers with minimum healthcare and minor irrigation facilities and so on.

Literacy movement

Rao was an activist of the literacy movement long before the total literacy movement had begun in the country.

He was one of the few persons who had taken part in the first state-wide jatha for non-formal education and to spread the message of the literacy movement. Such a jatha which later triggered the total literacy movement started from Vorkady in 1977 for the first time in the country. The women’s empowerment movement was started by him in 1975 by forming the Vanitha Vichar Vinimaya Kendra in Vorkady.

He was instrumental in starting the group guarantee scheme which was the oldest version of the present day Self-Help Groups.
Rao was a pioneer in starting the green movement by introducing a scheme to plant cashewnut saplings in the barren hills of Vorkady.

He is the proud father of late Veenadhari who had become a ray of hope for the HIV victims of the country.

Literary world

Rao had worked for the development of Vorkady as a Gram Sevak and as a social activist. Now he has been working in the field of literary world by translating books to Kannada, Malayalam and Konkani. He has translated the history of over 25 temples in Dakshina Kannada from Kannada to Malayalam. He says “this include the history of Sharavu temple, Kadri Manjunatheshwara temple, Mangaladevi temple, Kudroli
Gokarnanatheshwara temple, Dharmasthala, Polali Rajarajeshwari temple, Kateel Durgaparaeshwari temple, Boppanadu temple, Anantheshwara of Manjeshwar, Madhur Mahaganapathy temple, Kukke Subramanya temple and so on.”

Along with this, he has also translated the history of five temples of Kerala from Malayalam to Kannada. They include Sri Rajarajeshwari temple of Taliparambu, Muthappa Parshina kadavu temple, Madayi Kavu, Neeleshwara Bhagavathi Kshetra, Cherukunnu Anna Poorneshwari Kshethra. The translated books will be of great help to the devotees who visit the temples, Rao says.

Rao has also translated ‘Bhagavathgeetha’ of Dr P S Nair which is in prose (gadya) from Malayalam to Konkani. He is also translating ‘Mahabhagavatha’ from Malayalam to Konkani. A few chapters are remaining to be translated, he says.Along with this, he is also translating ‘Devi Bhagavatha’ from Malayalam to Konkani. His first translated book ‘Hands of God’ is a national award winning autobiography.

He has also translated ‘Srimad Bhagavathgeethe’ ‘Panchajanya’ which is in poetry form from Malayalam to Kannada. The book will be printed soon. His translation of ‘Hridrogam Poornamo-chanam,’ (C R Varma), ‘Tulasi-mahathme’ to Kannada is awaiting for release.He says “he does not know Kannada script. However, he writes Kannada in Malayalam script .”