The Indian writer of the nationalist period who is regarded as the father of the modern Tamil style, Bharati Subrahmanya was a son of learned Brahman. Bharati became a tamil scholar at an early age. He received little formal education, however in 1904 moved to Madras (now Chennai). There he translated English into Tamil for several magazines and later joined the Tamil daily newspaper Swadesmitran. This exposure to political affairs led to his involvement in the extremist wing of the Indian National Congress party and as a result he was forced to flee to Pondicherry a French colony where he lived in exile from 1910 to 1919. During this epoch Bharati`s nationalistic poems and essays were successes. In 1919 he was briefly imprisoned and later rejoined the Swadesamitran. He was killed by a temple elephant in Madras.