Category:Malayali Singaporeans

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During the 1950s and 1960s, the influence of Indian culture on Singapore life was potent. It was borne in on a wave of immigrants from the subcontinent that reached its peak shortly before the door was all but shut in 1953. Four years later, Indians formed a post-war-high proportion of the population at 9%; in the late 70's they comprise 6.4%--- 155,000 out of 2.4 million residents.... Of the ethnic Indians, barely 24,000 come from India's smallest yet most densely populated state, Kerala. . . (which) claims another superlative: it possesses the highest literacy rate of any Indian state and abounds with poets, writers and film artists. . .

One such "offshore" Indian writer who managed to gain both critical appreciation and commercial success in India's highly competitive literary circles was Singapore-based V.R. Gopala Pillai. In 1981, however, Pillai's name invoked not joy but grief among the local Keralan community: Singapore's dominant Malayalam writer died suddenly in hospital at the age of 66.