Having distinguished himself both academically and otherwise at the Madras Christian College and the Government Arts College of Madras University, India, he took to teaching, a career he pursued for thirty years in Sri Lanka, Lesotho and in the Republic of South Africa.  

He has written three Geography books which were approved by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education for use in schools and several work-books in Geography, Tamil Language and Literature all of which were published by the reputed Thanaluckumy Book Depot, Chunnakam. 

He is a poet and a writer and is known very well to the Tamil literary world as Kavignar (poet) Kandavanam. He has authored twenty four books, many of which are anthologies of his poems. He was the founder member of two Literary Circles in Sri Lanka, one in Matale, in the Central Province and the other in Jaffna, in Northern Province the latter of which elected him the president eight times.  

Kandavanam is also a dramatist and has the unique distinction of being one of the nine Tamil dramatist selected by the University of Sri Lanka to follow its pioneer two-year diploma course in Education in the teaching of drama and theater. After completing the course, he became the first teacher to teach drama and theater at the G.C.E. Advanced Level in the Tamil region. His specialty is children's plays and one of his plays named 'Wisdom is Strength' was placed first in an all island school drama contest conducted by the Ministry of Education, Sri Lanaka. 

Unable to return to Sri Lanka due to the army taking over his residence in Kurumbasiddy, he moved to Canada from  
the Republic of South Africa in 1988 with his wife, Thavamany, and children, Varny and Varanan and has been living in Toronto since then. In 1989, he joined the staff of the Upper Canada College, Toronto, where he works as the Mail Manager and Assistant Receptionist at present. 

Writing is Kandavanam's hobby. Undaunted by the destruction of his valuable collection of books and his unpublished articles and poems in Sri Lanka as a result of the occupation of his house by the Sri Lankan army, he continues to write and  appears regularly in some of the local Tamil  weeklies and magazines. 

He is the president of the Tamil Writer's Association of Canada and patron of many cultural, religious and students' organizations. 

In the recent past he has been honoured by his literary friends and cultural associations in Canada as well as in Germany with presentation of awards and honourary titles for his outstanding contribution to Tamil literature and for his invaluable social services. They have also published some of his works. 

Vina also occasionally writes in English, mostly poems. An album of some of his poems entitled 'Visions' was produced by the National Library of Poetry (U.S.) under ontemporary poets series. He has won an Editor's Award in a poetry competition organized by the National Library of Poetry for his poem 'A dancing Tree' which is included in the compilation 'Beyond the Horizon' and is one of the nine Canadian poets whose entries are recorded in an album. 

Vinayagar(Vina) Kandavanam has been awarded an honorary Cultural Doctorate in Philosophy of Literature in recognition of his distinguished professional achievement by the World University Roundtable in corporate affiliation with the World University upon the nomination of the International Administration in Boston, Arizona, USA.