Changampuzha Krishna Pillai

Changampuzha Krishna Pillai (Malayalam: ചങ്ങമ്പുഴ കൃഷ്ണപിള്ള; 10 October 1911 – 17 June 1948) was a celebrated Malayalam poet from Kerala, India, known for his elegy Ramanan (Malayalam: രമണന്‍) which was written in 1936 and sold over 100,000 copies. It is a long pastoral elegy, a play written in the form of verse, allegedly based on the life of Changampuzha's friend Edappally Raghavan Pillai. It is also adapted into a movie in 1967. He is credited with bringing poetry to the masses with his simple romantic style. He died of tuberculosis aged 36. His style influenced the next few generations of Malayalam poetry, notable among them was Vayalar Ramavarma, famous Malayalam lyricist. Born on 10 October 1911 at Edappally, presently part of Kochi city, to Thekkedathu Raman Menon and Changampuzha Paraukutty Amma, Changampuzha Krishna Pillai had his elementary education there itself. He completed his school education at Aluva and Ernakulam. College education was from Maharaja's College, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram. Later, after working as a clerk in Military Accountant's Office at Pune and at Kochi, he went to Chennai for studying Law, which he could not complete due to financial problems. He later worked in a press at Thrissur. It was during this time he wrote many of his works, though he had started writing even when he was a student. He had to study his own poem for his B.A. Honours class. Even though he had only about 25 years of creative period in his life, he became an epic poet, without writing any epic poem following the conventional norms. His legendary pastoral elegy, Ramanan was sold more than 100,000 copies, a record that still stands firm in Malayalam. Famous Malayalam critique Joseph Mundassery who was the first Education Minister of Kerala State and also the first Vice-Chancellor of Cochin University, was highly impressed reading 'Ramanan', and wrote his own introductory remarks for its 15th reprint praising the elegy.