An image from the past recurs and demands expression. An old man in a loin cloth and a cloth wrapped round his shoulders comes to visit father often. Sometimes his son drops in — a soft—skinned bulbous face with a ready smile and a gray shoulder bag against his starched kurta—pajama. They both were seen in nothing but white. The old man was Goparaju Ramachander Rao a.k.a Gora, who shared the British jails in Andhra with father and knew him since. His son Lavanam joined his father in the campaign against belief in God. They were two among many visitors who met father to discuss politics.
Gora founded the Atheist Centre in Andhra Pradesh in 1940. An entry in Wikipedia says "As a member organisation of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, the Atheist Centre endorses the Amsterdam Declaration 2002.
The institution received the International Humanist and Ethical Union's International Humanist Award in 1986.
On September 26th, 2011, the Atheist Centre announced that it would open a university and research center founded on the principles of Gora that would serve as India's first atheist university." Principals of Gora — a Gandhian, visionary and a staunch Atheist, who worked hard for the uplift of the rural poor of Andhra Pradesh.
It is not clear when the two met — my father and Gora, though mother says they knew each other from the time Gora joined the movement to fight for freedom from the British. The only thing common among the two, apart from their interest in politics, is that their wives have the same name — Saraswati.
