page_title: Edappally Raghavan Pillai
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Edappally Raghavan Pillai / Biography
caption_attribution_description: This photo is for uploading in St. Albert's HSS, Ernakulam page in Wikipedia
context_page_description: Edappally Raghavan Pillai was an Indian poet of Malayalam literature and a close associate of Changampuzha Krishna Pillai. The pair, the front-runners of romanticism in Malayalam, was considered by many as the Shelley and Keats combination of Malayalam poetry. Kesari Balakrishna Pillai compared Pillai to the Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi.
context_section_description: Raghavan Pillai was born on May 30, 1909 at Elamakkara, near Edapally in Ernakulam district of the south Indian state of Kerala to Pavathu Neelakanda Pillai and Kalyani Amma, in a family with limited financial means. His mother died when he was young and his father, who was an alcoholic, remarried; he could not get along well with his step mother. His early schooling was at a local school in Ponekkara after which he completed middle school from the English School in Edapally Chuttupadukara before completing his high school education from a school in Cheranellore and later at St. Albert's HSS, Ernakulam; he passed the 10th standard examination only on the second attempt. During this period, he worked as a private tuition teacher and he fell in love with one of his students who came from a rich family in Edapally. The girl's parents soon came to know about it and forced him to leave Edapally.
  Pillai moved to Thiruvananthapuram where he stayed with a friend by name M. Balakrishnan Nair and worked at various establishments viz. Bhashabhivardhini Book Depot, Sreemathi weekly and Kerala Kesari magazine as well as at a local grocery shop as their accountant. He also tried unsuccessfully to pass Vidwan examination. When Kerala Kesari was closed down, he moved to Kollam where he was accommodated by V. M. Narayana Pillai, a known lawyer and a relative of the girl he loved. It was here he came to know about the marriage of the girl when the lawyer received her wedding invitation. On July 4, 1936, when the lawyer was away from home to attend the wedding of the girl, Pillai, aged 27, bathed himself clean and wore a jasmine garland before committing suicide. His body was found the next morning, hanging from a tree.
caption: St. Albert's High School, Pillai's alma mater
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