GUNTUR: It’s a no-brainer that the more vocabulary we have at our fingertips to articulate how we feel, the better we are able to manage our emotions. Moreover, putting a word to a specific feeling can give us power over it. This prompted Sambasiva Rao, a 75-year-old lexicographer, to update the Sankaranarayana Telugu to English dictionary with new evolving words and their meanings.
Rao, a native of Guntur, worked as a paramedical officer in the medical and health department. He edited a magazine on Leprosy and a few biographies in Telugu and published two editions of a book on quotations in English.
Speaking to TNIE, Rao said, “The Sankaranarayana Telugu to English dictionary was not updated for several years. With the increasing importance of English language, students, especially the ones studying in government and Telugu medium schools, face difficulty in adapting to the language. This made me wonder if the dictionary can be updated and digitalised with more innovative features, it will have a better reach.”
With this vision in his mind, Sambasiva Rao never looked back. He went on to compile ‘Basic Two Languages Dictionary’, a compilation of 10,000 words in English and Telugu, a mini dictionary and completed a two-in-one English-Telugu and Telugu-Enlgish dictionary.
He was assisted by his daughter Hari Padma, an associate professor at Padmavati Mahila University. The dictionary achieved huge success soon after it hit the market. Within three years of publication, over 40,000 copies were sold. Along with this, he also digitalised over 15,000 hymns written by saint Tallapaka Annamacharya.
“After completing the translation and digitisation of dictionaries, several people suggested me to digitalise Annamacharya Keetanas. I wasn’t an erudite scholar. I took up editing and writing biographies as my passion while I was working. This gave a new purpose to my life post my retirement. I was overwhelmed that I could present rich literary works to the future generation,” the 75-year-old said.
Despite growing up in an age without computers, he quickly adapted to technology. Defying his age, he did a course in writing and Unicode in Hyderabad in order to begin his work on updating the dictionary. “I was not used to the evolving technology. But I pushed myself to complete the work without any errors,” he said. He is currently working on making the dictionary more accessible to visually challenged children by compiling a 25,000 word bilingual e-book.