Krishnanand Rai - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Mr. Rai was born to Lalita Rai and Jagannath Rai in a Hindu family. His birthplace Gondaur, is a small village in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh. The family's means of earning and livelihood was primarily agriculture until he started his career. He was youngest of the three brothers and his early schooling was done at the native village. Being part of joint family, he had strong sense of cohesion and family values. Mr. Rai lost his mother at an early age of one year because of which his upbringing was done by his grandmother. Currently his two elder brothers are at Gondaur and Varanasi. If his elders and family members are to be believed he was coy but very focused and hard working. At the age of 13 he moved to Varanasi to join the Central Hindu School. He along with his elder brothers stayed at a rented house which was also a home to two other families. The place was owned by a religious Mahant. Away from home these were trying times for him and the family. Monetary assistance was very limited throughout their early school days. Except for provisions, which came from their village every month, things of daily use, clothes, stationary etc. were limited. It was hard for them to make ends meet but the hardship brought them together and taught them the importance of hard work and determination. Studies were a huge source of motivation for him and he soon started gaining appreciation from school teachers as he turned out to be a bright student. Being a self groomed man he never lacked any confidence. His determination helped him overcome all the inhibitions and limitations. He was keen to learn every aspect of life and showed utter respect to people who helped him achieve his ambitions.

Mr. Rai attended BHU, when he decided to get into medicine. In his college days, he came across people like Manoj Sinha (B.J.P M.P) and Narendra Nath Singh (Prof B.H.U) who later became his close friends. His college days were tough. He had to battle limited resources on monetary front to keep his studies going. There were times when he had to skip college due to lack of money and that did not go down well with college authorities. He and his family started getting complains from college and finally he decided to call it quits when complains from the college outgrew his interest. There were also series of other incidents like the one at "Lanka" BHU which pulled him further away from college. This was also the time when politics drew some attention but the importance of becoming a bread winner for the family and supporting it led to abeyance of aspirations/plans. His priority forced him to find work instead. These were early years of his struggle and source of all his strength.