Dr. C.K. Hiranya Gowda was born in 1934 in Chamaraddahally, India. One hundred sixty-two people lived in his village, and the children walked three miles (one way) to school every day. Dr. Gowda excelled at school, and in December 1960, he graduated from Government Medical College in Mysore, India. For the next three years he interned in India before coming to St. Louis for his residency in General Practice and Otolaryngology and moving to Nashville in 1970.
In the years since, Dr. Gowda taught otorhinolaryngology at Meharry for 29 years and at Vanderbilt Medical School for 25 years. A co-founder of the Sri Ganesha Temple and the Hindu Cultural Center of Tennessee in 1980, Dr. Gowda notes that his other most-meaningful philanthropic project was the 1985 completion of a water supply system for his village, which vastly improved the health and welfare of the 500 villagers living there. Now retired, Dr. Gowda and his family have created this Fund to give back to the community that has given so very much to them.
