The love for knowledge can make a person cross great lengths for once you feed your curiosity it never ceases to crave for more.
Such hunger was also instilled in a child from the early 20th century when the Razakars were unleashing terror in the Hyderabad State, trying to resist the integration of the state into the Dominion of India. At a very tender age, he set out decided to open a library in Yellanki, a remote village in the erstwhile Nalgonda district. Yet the feudal landlords who were against the idea of letting people get educated suppressed him.
In the next few years, the boy grew up to become a lecturer, a principal, and an award-winning writer in Telugu literature and shared the stage with legendary poets such as Mahakavi Dasaradhi Krishnamacharyulu.
He is Dr. Kurella Vittalacharya, a man who loved literature and books so much that at the age of 84 he spent his entire life’s earnings building a library with around two lakh books in the same village, which currently is a part of Ramannapet Mandal in Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district so that others need not face the hardships he did in the pursuit of knowledge through books.
A Challenging Childhood
Vittalacharya was born in 1938 and had a very tough childhood as his father passed away the same year he took birth. His mother had to struggle a lot to meet their ends.
And so on growing up, Vittalacharya took charge. He made sure to do everything possible to become the man he is today. He would stay in Vishwakarma Hostel in Bhuvanagiri and study. Along with that every Sunday he went to all households in the area seeking donations from people to meet basic needs such as food, supplies, and books. Due to scarce resources, he also resorted to borrowing books from friends and spent nights together reading them so that he could return them the next morning.
Spell Bounding Career
His hard work and determination helped him attain an M Phil degree in 1977 on ‘Telugu lo Golusukattu Navalalu’ and Ph.D. from Osmania University in 1988, on ‘Swatantra Udyamala Chitrana’ in Telugu novels.
During his studies and even after completion, he took up several odd jobs, and finally became a lecturer at a government degree college. Next, he continued his stint for several years and finally took voluntary retirement in 1993.
Apart from this, Vittalacharya has written about 22 books and was conferred with many prestigious awards including the Dasaradhi Award by the Telangana government in 2019.
The Library
Many years post his retirement he made his mind to fulfill his dream of building a library. And so in 2014, he started one in his own home with 5,000 books from his collection. To grow his venture, he started distributing pamphlets at meetings, seeking donations from people in the form of books.
To his surprise, several eminent writers, poets and professors were so impressed that they started donating all their books to the library which added up to about 2 lakh books in no time!
Even his students joined the cause and the amount donated by them helped Vittalacharya demolish his old house, and mobilise Rs 50 lakh to build and dedicate a library to his village.
With this, his library became a huge repository of information, frequently visited by research scholars from universities across the State, with eight of them receiving doctorates.
The initiative had such immense impact that those who were inspired by Vittalacharya started libraries in eight villages.
Today frequent readers from the village are given token rewards and felicitated every year for being regular to the book house as a gesture of appreciation.
Would you like to visit Vittalacharya’s library, or may be build one?