In the early 1930s, his concert schedule has become so hectic that he was away from home for months. Tiruvengadu was quite a backwater in those days. Roads were not there and journeys involved travelling by bullock carts. Travel to other places involved boarding trains at Kumbakonam or Mayavaram and very often Pillai’s schedules were such that he could only alight at these stations from one train and board another for a new concert engagement. His family would visit him at the station and then he would get to see and fondle his growing children.