A. R. Pillai

The family lived in a large complex of buildings known as Punnackal, situated on the western side of Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple inside the Fort, Thiruvananthapuram.Varma totally refused to include any of the large number of English books imported by Pillai from England in the list of textbooks prescribed for the schools in the State.But he was able to complete only two courses for the PhD degree when the situation brought about by the First World War, which began in October 1914 and lasted till November 1918 came in the way; the monthly remittances of money to A.R.Pillai by his maternal uncle (the head of his matriarchal family, Punnackal) and letters from his mother in Punnackal and his wife and children and his father-in-law, C.V.Raman Pillai, at Rosscote in Thiruvananthapuram, were stopped from August 1914 by the British authorities, Pillai being in their enemy country."[8] During the War, A. R. Pillai wrote several articles in German newspapers and gave lectures in various places in Germany, at various universities and other institutions, on Indian history, culture and architecture.Bhupendranath Datta of the India Independence Committee wrote We want brochures on economic, political, social, religious, etc., showing how British rule is injuring and hindering the development of the Indian people on the above-mentioned lines.Among them was an article in Westermanns Monatshefte of December 1914 which called for German support for the Indian struggle for freedom under the title "Indien Und Die Europaische Krisis" (India and the European Crisis- in translation.[14] The first public activity of this new organisation was a reception held in honour of Raja Mahendra Pratap, "the most colourful Indian personality then in Germany" (also called "The Marco Polo of the East") on 13 April 1918.After tackling enormous agonizing problems in giving up his firm and getting a fresh passport from the British after undertaking not to involve in local politics in India and not to correspond with Germany any more, A. R. Pillai could return to Trivandrum only in October 1926, four and a half years after C. V.'s death on 21 March 1922.On his return to Trivandrum via Colombo in October 1926 after 18 years abroad, A. R. Pillai was kept under surveillance and spied by the British for quite some time at Rosscote where he lived with his wife and children.Pillai acquired the sole agency for the sale of Mercedes-Benz cars in South India, but before he could formally launch his firm and execute the order for the limousine, he died a year before the Second World War broke out; within a few months, A.R.