Born on 10 October 1911 in
Edappally, presently part of
Kochi city, to a
Malayali Nair family, 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 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. Changampuzha's other famous works include Vazhakkula, Divyageetham, Yavanika, Bashpanjali, Manaswini, Sankalpakanthi, Devageetha, Spandikkunna Asthimatam, Udyana lakshmi, Patunna Pisachu, novel Kalithozhi and others. He was a close friend of
Edappally Raghavan Pillai, another great poet of his time. 'Samastha Kerala Sahitya Parishath', an organisation of Malayalam literary workers had its first convention at Edappally. Changampuzha worked hard for its success. Changampuzha started a career as a clerk in Port trust. He could not continue there due to health and personal reasons. He took up another assignment at a Printing Press (Mangalodayam) at Thrissur. He got married and became a father of four children, among which his younger son died before he turned one. Later, he started suffering from
tuberculosis and became bed ridden. Finally in 1948, on the rainy day of 17 June at half past 3 pm, he died at the age of thirty-six and nine months. His body was cremated in the compound of his house at Edappally. An appropriate monument has been erected there, which is visited by the lovers of Malayalam language. He is now survived by his younger daughter Lalitha. His wife outlived him for 54 years, finally dying in 2002. His elder son Sreekumar died in a road accident in 2004. His elder daughter Ajitha committed suicide in the late 1980s with her whole family. ==Published works==