Thomas Raja was born in 1967 in Vaniyambadi, a village in Tirupattur district in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
[1] His father, who worked as a lineman with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, moved to Bengaluru with family when Raja was young.
[3] He started drinking and gambling, slept on pavements and had to spend time in Chennai Central Prison after getting caught by the police.
Subsequently, with funds collected from the public, he bought a half-acre plot of land in Doddagubbi Village near the city, where he constructed a 2000 sq.
[4] A recipient of the Individual H. Honnaiah Samaja Seva Prashasti Award in 2001, Raja delivered a speech at TEDx Talks in 2012.