 Raju, whose real name was Baddam Bhaskara Reddy, was born into a farming family in Ankusapuram village of Nalgonda district in 1944.Chera, as he was endearingly called by his friends, was influenced by the literary works of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Tagore during his formative years.Even the legendary poet Sri Sri derived a lot of inspiration from him and dedicated his most popular anthology of poems "Maha Prasthanam" to Chera.