Dr. Raveendra Nadaraja's Obituary
Dr. Raveendra Nadaraja
January 13, 1944 – May 20, 2025
On May 20, 2025, Dr. Raveendra Nadaraja left this Earth peacefully-- the very way he lived his life. He passed away at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley, the same hospital where he dedicated 30+ years of service caring for others as a Cardiovascular Thoracic and Trauma surgeon.
Ravi (as his friends and family called him) was born on January 13, 1944, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was the youngest son of the late Nallathamby Nadaraja of the Sri Lankan civil service and Nithiyaratnam (Nagalingam) Nadaraja. He attended the Royal College in Colombo from 1955-1961 and completed his medical college training in 1967 at the University of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Colombo. He then worked as a surgeon in Sri Lanka at multiple teaching hospitals in Colombo, Kandy and Badulla.
In 1972, he moved to the United Kingdom where he was a senior house officer and later a registrar at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Surrey, England. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1973 and of London in 1975. Though he was fully qualified, he elected for another 5 years of surgical training in order to practice in the United States. He completed a general surgery residency at the University of Rochester and a fellowship in Cardiovascular and Thoracic surgery at the Texas Heart Institute under the tutelage of the esteemed cardiac surgeon, Dr. Denton Cooley. He became a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons in 1981 and the American College of Surgeons in 1983.
In between his many years of surgical training, he married his wife, Dr. Iswara Gowri (Subramaniam) Nadaraja on February 9, 1977, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Their older daughter, Garani Shiranthana, was born in Morristown, New Jersey and their younger daughter, Divani Raveena, was born in Hayward, California, which was to become their home for the next 44 years.
Following his initial position at Kaiser Permanente in Hayward, California, Ravi started a successful private practice in Cardiovascular, Thoracic and Trauma surgery in 1985. He had surgical privileges at numerous hospitals in the California Bay Area and held multiple leadership roles . After a distinguished career, Ravi retired in 2014.
Medicine was not Ravi’s only passion. Ravi was a pillar of the Bay Area Sri Lankan Tamil community. After the escalation of civil and political unrest in Sri Lanka in 1983, Ravi recognized the value of a Sri Lankan Tamil community in the Bay Area and organized yearly cultural events at his home. In 1994, he co-founded the Tamils of Northern California (TNC) dedicated to upholding Sri Lankan Tamil culture and practices. TNC continues to thrive as a central part of the expansive Bay Area Sri Lankan Tamil community today.
Perpetually curious and always learning, Ravi had an encyclopedic knowledge of Tamil language, music, movies, history, culture and Hindu philosophy. He was a devotee of Satguru Sivya Subramuniyaswami (Gurudeva) and a consistent major donor to the Iraivan temple in Kaui, Hawaii. Ravi was an avid gardener and was proud of his fruit trees and flowers.
Ravi is cherished by his wife (Gowri), his daughters (Shiranthana & Raveena), his sons-in-law (Pallav & Amit), 6 grandchildren (Gajan, Jahnavi, Nila, Krishni, Aadishri & Isha), his older brother (Nagendra), many extended family members including his brother-in-law and sister-in-law (Subra and Dhakshini Ramanan).
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