Articles
Sri Yelamanchi Chiranjivi Rao, a Kamma Torch Bearer
Dt: 13/12/24
Sri Yelamanchi Chiranjivi Rao, a Kamma Torch Bearer
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
Sri Chiranjivi Rao is known to me since his service in the Department of Telecoms along with me . No person with merit and ambition will be satisfied in a job that does not fully utilize his talents for advancement. So Sri Chiranjivi Rao left the Department to utilize his talent and achieve his ambitions to be useful to society while at the same time growing in prosperity with satisfaction.
2. Rural people are migrating to towns and the traditional way of forging matrimonial alliances was giving way. In rural families traditionally the uncle ( mother’s brother) looks for an alliance for the sisters son or daughter. That system was becoming no longer feasible or acceptable to the families migrating to towns and the people taking different professions. So finding a spouse has to be one’s own effort or distantly living parents . An alternative, that Sri Chiranjivi Rao thought of starting a marriage bureau and he did start the Kakatiya Marriage Bureau in the year 1982 . This bureau has grown with several branches in the Telugu , Kannada & Tamil Nadu states where many Kammas are settled and the Kamma young are working in different professions in India and foreign cities.
3. This activity as a marriage bureau cannot be solely for the purpose of making money . One cannot play with lives of the young . Marriages arranged will have to be fixed between compatible people of compatible professions with full understanding of the implications of marriage . In Hindu dharma, marriages are believed to be made in heaven and lived on earth. Such is the sanctity - till death does part us . Therefore a lot of study has to be done about the past of the families preferences and the possibility of lasting togetherness. It is in this regard that the Kakatiya Bureau under the direction of Sri Chiranjivi Rao has been doing an excellent job because of the accumulation of a wealth of information over a period of time regarding hundreds of marriages that it has been able to fix.
4. Sri Chiranjivi Rao has found in her daughter -in-law, Smt. Navina an able interested person in studying the persons coming to the Bureau for help in fixing the marriages. She makes extensive inquiries and finds out what the parents and the young are wanting and whether those wants are congruent . Similarly, between the persons who expects to be complementary and lasting couples extensive studies are made. The wealth of information so gathered enables excellent counselling to go forward to fix the marriage or not.
5. Apart from this professional expertise in fixing marriages after deep study and counselling Sri Chiranjivi Roa took the initiative for starting the monthly journal, “Kamma Vaibhavam” in the year 2004. Some will wonder whether this is not a communal activity. “Communal” is a pejorative word but “commune” community are respectable words. People indulging communal politics based upon a particular caste are communal. Friendship and mutual wellbeing starts in the family ; goes on extending to the caste and neighborhood and to the region / state , linguistic group, to the nation and beyond . If all this is with the view of every body’s wellbeing and prosperity, it is commendable. This is the Hindu view too. By picking up people in the community who have attained eminence by dint of aspiration and hard work and featuring them in the monthly journal “Kamma Vaibhavam”, the young in the community are inspired to strive to rise to eminence in their chosen fields.
6. One is reminded of the great message in the following poem:
Lives of great men all remind us we may make our lives sublime
and departing leave behind us foot prints on the sands of time.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
7. With the success stories of the eminent people in the community, many from modest or even indigent origins, the readers and their families are inspired to strive and shine.
8. The information in the articles that are regularly published from Smt Navina regarding marriage and their desirability and durability and Smt. Satyavani about the importance of a stable family and the broad variety of content in my own contributions the journal, Kamma Vaibhavam I add value to the journal . Kamma Vaibhavam is not only about finding spouses but also in calling the young in the community to rise to great stature in society.
9. Reports on community celebration of festivals in the Kamma Vaibhavan bring our cultural values and beliefs to inculcate moral and ethical values.
10. The editorials by Sri Chiranjivi Rao are well informed and will considered. They cover political, social, moral and ethical issues; especially coming hard on corruption in politicians of all hues, for whom politics has become commerce and governmental power and government’s money have become resources to build up personal wealth and Parivar succession. Speaking and writing truth without fear shows integrity.
11. It gives me great pleasure to have Sri Chiranjivi Rao and Smt. Navina as my friends exchanging views on several matters of moment for the community and for the country.
12. I am sure that good counsel will continue in the years to come from both Sri Chiranjivi Rao and Smt. Navina and that this journal, Kamma Vaibhavam will become more and more popular, informative , instructing and inspiring. (895 words)
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