The devotee who saved god's treasure

Trivandrum Padmanabha Iyengar Sundara Rajan is a former I.P.S. officer and advocate in the Supreme Court. He is a bachelor and prefers to be known as " a humble supplicant (saranagata) of the great Lord Sri Padmanabha ". He is reverentially addressed by people as Valia Swami.

Sundara Rajan is the youngest son of T. K. Padmanabha Iyengar (retd. Head Master of Killippalam School) and Seshi Ammal (niece of one of India's biggest industrialists T. V. Sundaram Iyengar). He was born on April 18, 1941.He is a Vadakalai Sri Vaishnava Brahmin belonging to Srivatsa Gotra.

Career

An officer of the 1964 West Bengal cadre, Sundara Rajan served as an Assistant Director in the Intelligence Bureau and was also a close confidant of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He resigned from the I.P.S. - " I could not stand the internal politics"- after six years and enrolled as an advocate in the Supreme Court. But he gave up his practice to return to his native Thiruvananthapuram in the '80s "only to take my father to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple every day".

Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple

It was Sundara Rajan's efforts that led to the inventorying of the valuables in the vaults of the Temple. According to some estimates, the worth of the valuables runs into thousands of crores of rupees. The Temple suddenly shot into international fame.