A couple of years back, i was on pilgrimage to kumbakonam - mayiladuthurai . belt.This particular belt has close to 1000 temples ,most of them built by the Great Cholas of 11th century. And suddenly a gush of thoughts flashed my mind -Melakadambur-Uttama Chola-Arunmozhi varman & nandhini.
If you were wondering what are they, they are famous characters in a Tamil Novel - Ponniyin Selvan.A novel which was written in 1950s in a weekly magazine "Kalki" for 3 years. 70 years ago, at a time when the literacy level was low and when the English-educated Tamils looked down on writings in Tamil, Kalki's circulation touched 71,000 copies - the largest for any weekly in the county then.
In 2002, more than 60 years after the original novel has been released, the Indian express published an article about ponniyin selvan and its fan base.The paper called for fans in the marina beach and the enthusiastic fans joined together and arranged a trip from chennai Kalki office to see the places which come across in the novel.
In 2002, more than 60 years after the original novel has been released, the Indian express published an article about ponniyin selvan and its fan base.The paper called for fans in the marina beach and the enthusiastic fans joined together and arranged a trip from chennai Kalki office to see the places which come across in the novel.
One of my friend's father had painstakingly collected the series when it came in Ananta Vikatan. The novel runs into 2400 pages in 5 parts and it was published for close to 3 years. Imagine the effort that would have got into collecting the novel.Nevertheless to say, all of Kalki's work has been nationalised by TN government.
M.G.R , Bharathiraja and Maniratnam all at different point of time tried to make the novel into a movie but failed. MGR when he was a chief minister, tried to produce the novel with Kamal as hero. Director Maniratnam tried it around 2011. All of the efforts failed. Rajnikanth once mentioned that the character Neelambari in Padayappa movie was inspired by the character Nandhini in Ponniyin Selvan.
The novel writing style is innocent and Kalki makes it interesting and we wait like a child hearing a story from its grandfather. Enough of starters, we will talk about the novel and the history of cholas in our next post. Wait a couple of days!
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