About
From first-batch Burla to lantern-light wards in Bamanghati — one unbroken life of medicine, still at her desk in Rairangpur.
Examining every patient herself
Biodata
A short record of the physician, written in one place.
01She is a polyglot. Patients can discuss their illness in their mother tongue.
02She has treated patients of four generations. In Rairangpur she has treated thousands of families since the 1960s and knows their medical history, for the best benefit of her patients.
03She believes in natural healing, prescribes very little medicine, and helps the poor with physician samples and other medical help.
Biography
More than six decades of medicine in Mayurbhanj — from lantern-light wards to free care after retirement. Explore each chapter below.
Opening
Service to Mankind is Service to God.
Dr. Poodipeddi Sita Manikyeswari was born in 1941, on Bahuda Rath Yatra, in Parvatipuram, in the years before Independence. She grew up in Jeypore, Odisha, in a house of scripture, scholarship and guests. She entered the profession at twenty-four and has not left it. Her belief has not changed.
Family & language
She was the sixth of eight children of Shri P. K. Vishwanath Sastry and Smt. P. Lakshmi. Her father, a Sanskrit scholar and Dewan to the local king, translated the Srimad Bhagavad Gita into Telugu and made its recitation part of daily life.
She completed Intermediate at Vikram Dev College, Jeypore, and joined the first batch of Veer Surendra Sai Medical College, Burla — today VIMSAR — one of the pioneering women doctors of that institution.
Public service ran in the family. A brother, Shri P. V. A. Narasaiah, OAS, retired as Registrar of OUAT, Bhubaneswar. Another, Shri P. V. G. Krishna Murthy, served as Sales Tax Officer.
A polyglot healer
She is a polyglot. She speaks Odia, English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Santali, and is fluent in many dialects spoken in Mayurbhanj and other parts of Odisha. This has helped many patients discuss their illness in their mother tongue.
Government service
The lantern years
Her first posting was Rairangpur, in the forested Bamanghati sub-division of Mayurbhanj, when roads, power and machines were scarce. Obstetrics rested on the hand and the ear. She still examines every patient herself.
Leprosy then was not only a disease. It was a sentence of hiding. As District Leprosy Officer she walked the field and drew people out of isolation. Integrity outlasted intimidation.
As District Malaria Officer she worked a district where cerebral malaria was common and awareness dangerously low. She has said she gave it “100 per cent”.
Patient & family
Around June or July 1966, a first-time mother delivered on a ward bed before she could be moved. The infant arrived en caul — motionless. Staff set the child aside as stillborn.
Dr. Manikyeswari looked again, opened the sac, cleared the airway, and gave mouth-to-mouth breathing. The child cried. His name is Shri Saroj Kumar Agarwal — a senior citizen of Rairangpur today.
Taken from Dr. Manikyeswari’s service record, as remembered in Rairangpur for 62 years. Told as history, not as a paid testimonial.
On 22 June 1973 she married Shri Manoranjan (Nandia) Mohanty. As eldest daughter-in-law of a twenty-two-member household she carried both house and hospital.
The couple have two children, Dr. Vijaya Lakshmi Mohanty and Shri Srinivas Mohanty. Their son needed continuous care. She did not let either duty diminish the other.
A few frames from the household archive.
The Art of Living
Retirement ended the salary, not the practice. In 2002 she joined The Art of Living — combining clinical work with yoga, pranayama, meditation, and Agnihotra Homa. She has been a Trainer of The Art of Living, founded by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, for more than two decades. She is an accomplished singer as well.
Her work with The Art of Living has been put forward among the Foundation’s Unsung Everyday Heroes — a recognition of quiet seva.
At eighty-five she still sees well over a hundred patients a week, visits those who cannot come, and gives medicines to those who cannot pay. She has treated patients of four generations. In Rairangpur she has treated thousands of families since the 1960s and knows their medical history, for the best benefit of her patients. She believes in natural healing, prescribes very little medicine, and helps the poor with physician samples and other medical help.
Health is having all these – a disease-free body; a quiver-free breath; a stress-free mind; an inhibition-free intellect; an obsession-free memory; an ego that includes all, and a soul that is free from sorrow.
Sri Sri University camps
Health camps in villages adjoining Sri Sri University — more than 50 lakh patients across 200+ camps in her career. Villages included Arilo, Godi Sahi, Barsinga, Ramdaspur, Naraj, Marthapur, and others across Mayurbhanj and Cuttack.
Closing
From lantern-light in 1960s Rairangpur to the Reception Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan — one line of work, still unfinished.
Recognition
Public honour already recorded in her archive — at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in the press, and through The Art of Living.
A reception in the Reception Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
With the Hon’ble President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu, at a public reception.
The Odia daily Prameya on her continued service after retirement.
Her work with The Art of Living has been put forward among the Foundation’s Unsung Everyday Heroes.
Book release at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, Odisha, 29 July 2023.
Each day
The daily routine of Dr. P. S. Manikyeswari includes yoga, Sudarshan Kriya, meditation, treating patients, and seva to the elderly and the poor. She is an accomplished singer. She has been a Trainer of The Art of Living, founded by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, for more than two decades.
Rairangpur, Odisha
