01Ettayapuram to Kashi
C. Subramaniam was born at Ettayapuram in Tirunelveli district. While still a boy his verses so impressed the scholars of the Ettayapuram court that they gave him the title Bharati. From 1898 to 1902 he lived at Kashi with his aunt, learnt Sanskrit and Hindi, and grew his moustache and tied his turban in the northern way. Back in the south he joined the Tamil daily Swadesamitran in 1904 and the weekly India in 1906, and his songs for the Swadeshi movement spread from mouth to mouth.
02Pondicherry and the last years
When the government moved against India in 1908 he slipped into French Pondicherry, where Sri Aurobindo also took refuge in 1910. There he wrote much of his finest work: Kannan Pattu, songs to Krishna as friend, mother, lover and servant; Kuyil Pattu; and Panchali Sabatham, Draupadi’s vow retold in Tamil. He wrote against untouchability and for the education of women. He crossed into British India in 1918 and was arrested at Cuddalore. In 1921 the elephant of the Parthasarathy temple at Triplicane, which he used to feed, struck him; he never fully recovered and died on 11 September 1921. In 1949 the Madras government nationalised his works so anyone could print them.
