Pradeep Nettur

Born to illustrious parents, father being a Freedom Fighter and mother an educationist, the translator had his grooming in high moral settings. He inherited and imbibed all the values and principles that his parents stood for. Shedding initial inkling for student politics, he chose public service at the instance of his father. As an engineer in Posts & Telegraphs Department, he set high standards in all his official activities and dealings, spanning about 36 years. To his credit he has successfully delivered of hundreds of projects, many of them prestigious, being part of the team responsible for ushering in the Telecom revolution in the country. On the energy conservation front, he charted many an initiative that led to the garnering of National Energy Conservation Awards five times, between 2006 and 2010, by his organisation under his leadership. Post retirement, he turned his attention to his father’s rich legacy in diverse areas, including literature, that was slowly vanishing from public memory. The rich experiences and visionary thoughts of his father, who lived through the freedom struggle, subsequently as a Member of Parliament in the first Lok Sabha and overall as a lifelong humanist largely remained confined to Malayalam literature so far. The fervent wish of the siblings that such works should get wider exposure was the inspiration for him to translate his father’s first book. The translator’s first publication was a compilation of his father’s speeches in the Parliament, by name, ‘In the Annals of Parliament’. This was published in 2013, during the birth centenary celebrations of his father. This translation is the translator’s second venture, which may hopefully be followed by a translation of the rest of his father’s works, including unpublished ones.