Ponjikkara Rafi

Joseph Raphael (12 April 1924 – 6 September 1992), better identified as Ponjikkara Rafi, was an Indian essayist, playwright, short story writer and a novelist of Malayalam literature.

Ponjikkara Rafi was born Joseph Raphael on 12 April 1924 in Naduvathezhathu family of Ponjikkara, an islet in Mulavukad panchayat, along the coast of (then Cochin State) present day Ernakulam district, in the south Indian state of Kerala, in a family of carpenters as the seventh among the nine children born to Shouryar Joseph[note 1] and Anna.

Subsequently, he passed a vocational course in blacksmithy from Government Trade School and started his career as a fitter at the work shop of the Cochin Port.

[2] His stay at the port was short as he was terminated from service in the wake of his participation in a workers' strike and his next job at the Indian Aluminium Company, Aluva, as a crane operator, also ended the same way.

[2][11] In Swargadhoothan, Rafi envisioned the islets around Kochi getting connected to the mainland in 1958 and it became a reality when Goshree bridges were opened in February 2004.