Mangaluru :
After a long career rat race that took him across the country and the globe, life has come full circle for Chandrakantha Rao, 53, of Inna Village near Padubidri, about 50km from here.
After being the director & president, Swiss Singapore Overseas Enterprises of Aditya Birla Group and managing operations in nine countries, he retired when he turned 50 and settled down at his Praakruti Fruit Farm – a modern model farm with a 1,250 sqft wood house.
He and his wife, Supriya, moved 14 times all over India in the first 24 years of his career and even all over the world in the last five years. And all the while, one question remained on top of his mind: Where to?
Rao said: “What you see around the fruit farm today is a result of my search for that question. It is a model farm getting developed just to show case possibilities in the fertile land of the coast. It started with a dream of putting our quiet village Inna on the map and to create a world class farm to show case possibilities.”
Rao, who completed his graduation from NIT-K with distinction in 1983, wanted to hang his boots when he turned 50. And he worked towards this end. “That was the plan. As soon as I felt independent I decided it to call a day. Once you decide, then you will work towards reasonable financial independence. I was quite clear that I wanted to retire at 50,” he said and added, “The company thinks I’m on sabbatical.”
He quit in 2012 and returned to his village where did his school.
The farm house – built of Green Teak and designed by his Thai friend Nattapoom Raksakul — was completed in 2011. The house is named “Su Kantha I” – derived from Su-priya and Chandra-Kantha) and `I’ from Inna.
Rao visited several progressive farms in Kochi, Karkala, Naravi, Hiriyadka, Belthangady, Puttur and Kundapur and designed the farm with the help of Amit Soans of West Coast Nursery at Uchila. His farm has an acre each for cultivation of mango, chikoo, rambutan, guava, mangosteen and coconut.
He said that an excellent farm cannot be complete without a farm house. A small team from Thailand (Kanchanpuri) guided a local team of 12 carpenters to complete this project in less than three months.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Mangaluru / by Stanley Pinto, TNN / March 02nd, 2015