It was the midsummer of the 1960s. It was the first day of his journey as a student pursuing medicine in the prestigious Kasturba Medical College. It was during an ordinary evening stroll as a young and curious student when he stumbled upon a tiny board that made an urgent appeal for an O-positive blood group donor. Without a second thought, the young boy rushed to the address and donated blood for the first time in his life. For most, the gesture may have seemed a random act of kindness by an aspiring doctor, but for him, this was the only thing he was taught by his parents – to help the needy.

Later that evening, the warden summoned him for a phone call that was made for him. He held the receiver of the good old black telephone into his hands and heard a deep, soothing voice at the other end of the line that came straight to the point. He congratulated the boy for his decision of donating blood earlier that evening and also told him that he had saved a life. The caller was none other than Dr T M A Pai himself – the man who built the university town of Manipal.

While his parents had planted in him the seeds of social welfare as a child, Dr Pai’s phone call nurtured it. His journey as a student of medicine had truly begun.

Back in the 1960s, rural India was plagued with epidemics like cholera and typhoid. While people all over the country were affected, rural India suffered a lot more owing to lack of awareness and treatment facilities. Even as a student, Dr Rao always believed that the will to serve is much stronger than all the resistance of the world put together. Battling the rigours of academic pressure, he would gather like-minded students to collect vaccines from the corporation. Equipped with supplies, they would visit as many neighbouring villages as they could and administer every single one of them to ensure that they contained as well as prevented further outbreaks of those deadly diseases. Each vaccine that they injected opened their eyes even more to the sufferings of the needy. While most students aspire to become specialists in reputed hospitals, he had a different dream brewing inside him: he was ready to start his own village clinic.

After earning his MBBS degree, he did not let his career or ambition come in the way of his true mission of serving humanity. On the 15th of August 1973, the same year that he graduated, the Sunday clinic was born in Begur Village, about 33 kilometres from Bangalore. Within a span of 5 years the number of patients grew from 5 to over 300. Continuing his relentless pursuit for serving humanity, he chose to do his MD in Medicine over surgery unlike most of his qualified counterparts as it allowed him to serve a much larger section of the society. Right from the simplest of complaints, to the most complicated of surgeries, Dr Rao and his team have touched the lives of over 2 million patients so far. Since that Sunday afternoon of 1973, Dr Rao has not missed a single Sunday at the clinic. Today, the number of dedicated volunteers have grown over 30, and the tiny village of Begur continues to witness thousands of patients queuing up every Sunday to claim their birthright – the right to healthcare

Over 2 million people treated – free of cost
Over 30 dedicated volunteers and 5 trained nurses
A fleet of ambulances for transfers to hospitals
Over 5000 free cataract surgeries performed successfully
Over 700 toilets constructed to spread the message of hygiene
Over 50 schools benefitted with uniforms, books and infrastructure