Edappally Raghavan Pillai

Edappally Raghavan Pillai (30 May 1909 – 4 July 1936) was a romantic Malayalam poet. He along with his close friend Changampuzha Krishna Pillai brought in a new breath of life into the Malayalam poetry of the 1930s. They are considered as Shelley and Keats of Malayalm poetry. In the history of poetries, perhaps in any language, the poem titled 'Ramanan' written by late 'Mahakavi' Changampuzha Krishna Pillai broke all records in its circulation and readership. It was first published in 1937 and within eight years 15 times it had to be reprinted, with thousands of copies in every reprint. (As on today 52 reprints have been brought out and lakhs of copies sold). People even wrote down completely in their own hand since the copies were not available in the market. This pastoral elegy, the first of its kind in Malayalam language, was written by Changampuzha in memory of his friend and poet Edappally Raghavan Pillai. A short lived Raghavan Pillai is recognised as a poet with his notable contributions.

Raghavan Pillai and Changampuzha Krishna Pillai belonged to the same place, Edappally, a suburban area near Ernakulam town (now coming under the city limits of Kochi). Raghavan Pillai was senior to Changampuzha by three years. Raghvan Pillai was born in 1909 at Paravur in Ernakulam district, which was the native place of his mother . Pandavath Neelakanda Pillai and Meenakshi amma were his parents. Neelakanta Pillai was working as a peon in the Excise department, and the family' had to survive with his small income. To add to this Neelakanda Pillai had the habit of drinking liquors. All these made Raghavan Pillai's life miserable. He did not get much support for his education. He had his school education at Edappally itself. He showed his interest in writing poems in his younger period itself. This attracted the attention of senior persons such as Edappally Karunakara Menon, who himself was a literary worker.

Edappally Karunakara Menon was the son of Krishna Raja of Edappally Palace. He took initiative to organise young literary workers of that area in his residence. Raghavn Pillai was one among them. Seeing his talents in writing poems and knowing his family problems, Karunakara Menon helped him financially also. The poems written by him were read before the literary club and the experts gave their comments instantaneously. This helped Raghavan Pillai very much to come up as a poet.

When Changampuzha joined the preparatory class in the primary school at Edappally, Raghavan Pillai was studying in the second form. Because of this seniority he did not mingle with Changampuzha. Changampuzha also had started writing small poems by this time. Ragavan Pillai did not want to recognise this talent of Changampuzha. Thus he started ridiculing him through poems. Changampuzha's grand mother was a maid servant at the Edappally Palace. So naturally she used to bring home the left overs from the Palace. This issue was highlighted in the poems written by Raghavan Pillai, which made Changampuzha uneasy. Both behaved as enemies and used every situation to defeat each other.

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