- Lived:
- 16 April 1848, Rajahmundry (Rājamahendravaram), on the Godavari in the Madras Presidency → Rajahmundry nearly all his life, with a spell in Madras (Chennai); died in Madras, 27 May 1919
- Field:
- social reform and Telugu letters — journalist, novelist, satirist, schoolmaster, and organizer of the widow-remarriage movement in the Telugu country
- The Big Idea:
- One man with a press, a school and a stubborn conscience can restart a language and re-argue a society. He wrote the first Telugu novel, built modern Telugu prose, and then spent his fortune and his safety marrying widows whom his society had condemned to living death.
- In their words:
- "If we write against corruption the government authorities are angered. If we criticise gentlemen indulging in prostitution, they are upset." (from his journal Vivekavardhani, on the editor's predicament)
- If you remember one thing:
- On 11 December 1881 a schoolmaster in Rajahmundry married a teenage widow to a former student while constables guarded the doors from a stone-throwing crowd — and then he did it again, and again, for thirty years, spending everything he had, until Telugu people gave his lifetime a name: their renaissance.