Somasundaram Anandarajan was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon in Sri Lanka. He was born in Kayts, a small village in northern Ceylon on 31 May 1926. Although he initially wanted to become an historian, being the only child of a blind mother inspired him to a pursue a career in medicine. He studied at the University of Ceylon and qualified in 1952. He was then appointed as a house surgeon and worked at government hospitals throughout Ceylon, including at Jaffna and Galle. In 1960 he moved with his wife Rajapoopathy and children to England and earned a diploma in ophthalmology in 1961. He worked with Edgar Frederick King at Moorfields Eye Hospital and passed his FRCS in 1966. His desire to serve his home country brought him and his family back to Ceylon in 1967, where he set up an eye practice. He spent the following decades as a leading consultant eye surgeon in Sri Lanka and set up monthly free eye clinics throughout the island to help the poor. Following his wife’s death in 1999, he created the Rajapoopathy Memorial Glaucoma Centre, with the goal of raising awareness about glaucoma and setting up free eye clinics across Sri Lanka. He had a passion for reading and writing. He published numerous articles in the *Ceylon Medical Journal* and was the author of many books published through the Rajapoopathy Memorial Glaucoma Centre, including on ophthalmic neurology, the macula and retinal pigment epithelium, the optic nerve and the history of ophthalmology. Somasundaram Anandarajan died on 11 May 2012 and was survived by his three children – Asokan, Valli and Murugan.