Varahenaeri Venkatesya Subramaniam Ayur, known as VVS Ayur.

Many Tamilians know this man as the one who translated Tirukural into English.

But above all, he was a freedom fighter.

Ayur was born in Tricchi and studied to be a lawyer.

He moved to England to train to be a barista, where he met Veer Sarvarkar.

That meeting changed the whole course of his life.

Together they established a base for Indian revolutionary activities in London.

When Sarvarkar was arrested for sedition in 1910, Ayur expected that he also would be picked

up.

So he quit his studies and escaped to Paris.

From there he sailed to French colony of Pondicherry, now Pudicherry, where he spent the

next 10 years in exile.

From Pudicherry he coordinated many activities to fight the British.

Most notably he mentored and trained Vanchinathan, a young activist who went on to assassinate

one of the British collectors in Tamil Nadu, who had been standing in the way of Indian

traders from doing business.

Ayur was finally arrested when he went to Madras, now Chennai, after World War One, and

was sent to prison for nine months.

While he was in prison, he completed one of his most famous works, a study of Kamba Ramayana.

Unfortunately, Veer's Ayur did not live to see an independent India.

He drowned in the Papanasanam Falls in 1925, but his revolutionary legacy has lived on

through the many he inspired and mentored.

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