Group for Ponniyin Selvan Lovers

Same here. I choose to remember them as I read in PS.

 

Ahem! How did I miss this thread?!

Join me in Ladies! PS is my all time favorite! Its an understatement to call it a favorite.. I have lived in the Chola period forgetting all the reality for the entire time I was reading.. I have read it once and revised it ( yeah.. revised in the sense reread favorite chapters and conversations) n number of times.. And When I was done reading the first time.. I was so depressed for a week that it ended..

And talking about AK's murder, of course, I cannot believe that Arulmozhi thevar would be involved! No, not him! If he was so obsessed for power why would he defer it for Uthama Chola's benefit, when the whole kingdom was eager to crown him?!

 

Might be to avoid unnecessary controversies!!
I think most of us fell in love with Kalki's characterization and cannot accept them otherwise.

 

True! Kalki's characterization s etched in our hearts!

 

Well, I read this when I was 15 and felt a boiling rage when AdithaKarikala was killed.
I don't know if you people read about the stone inscription of the Rajarajachola times, that I read, having details about exiling 119 or so people from the Chola kingdom for the muder of AK. Interestingly one or two were even ministers in the Uthama Chola period.

History has a lot of mysteries worth exploiting for, and very few take that route.

 

Who knows ,it might be a tactic to make people of the kingdom believe how great Arunmozhi is. If Kundhavai and Arunmozhi can plot the murder of Adhithya Karikalan, they can even make this drama of gifting the Kingdom to Uththamachozha aka Sendhan Amudhan,a delicate and soft spoken character who has regards and respects for all the Royal Family members, while Arunmozhi concentrates on expanding the boundaries of Chola Dynasty and assuring people a secure and free land to live in so that in a longer run people will want Arunmozhi to rule them. Even Kalki has portrayed the character of Uththamachozha to die after some years at the Helm of Chola Dynasty. Was it a natural death, who knows ? Being powerful some times has nothing to do with being the King, it is the King Maker who is all power full at any given time. In this case even Arunmozhi himself may have been Kundhavai's pawn. She is the one who was all powerfull in Chola Dynasty. As you all have shared, it is hard to come out of Kalki's Characterization. That is because of his story telling capacity. He has masterfully established the good virtues of the characters that he wanted to patronize. As a writer he has accomplished it first and in a best possible way. That is why the other historical novel writers like Balakumaaran (Udayar) find it hard to change the readers' views about the famous characters. Everybody takes PS as a scale by which they measure others' story telling, which is unfortunate. The real characteristics of people are not always black and white, it comes with many shades of gray too. That is what makes people more interesting, this is my view

Yes that is true. I have a downloaded version of Udayar, in which Balakumaran explains this. I like his writings as he always makes the reader get in to the world of the characters by paying more attention to details.(Irumbu-Kuthirai,Irandaavadhu Sooriyan being some among my favorite novels of Balakumaran !)

 

Me too heard about that novel (Author Narasimhan of The Hindu ?),portraying Kundhavai as Arunmozhi's mother. Sounds extreme and illogical but as I have not read that novel, it is difficult for me to come to a conclusion. Adhithya Karikalan was a war hero. He was more muscle than brain. He acted as per his state of mind and regretted his actions later, which is not a great quality to have as a ruler. His emotions were the reason for his downfall. Even the Prime Minister Aniruththa Bramaraayar, a master in espionage, did not like the idea of such an emotional person being crowned as the King of Chola Empire at that crucial time. Everybody other than the Thirukkovalur Malayamaan, Adhithya Karikalan's maternal grandfather, were against him being crowned. But Adhithya was a man with pure heart full of love towards Nandhini till the end. His was a plain characterization ,unlike Arunmozhi who was portrayed as somebody who can achieve so many great things, personally and for the Throne. Adhithya was the raw bloody Prince while Arunmozhi was the charming face of Chola Dynasty. Had Nandhini and Adhithya Karikalan been married, the story would have gone in an altogether different plane, portraying the skills and master mindedness of two powerful female characters, Kundhavai and Nandhini, competing against each other. This is all only interesting viewpoints, I am not basing any of my ideas with historical data which might not support these. Just food for thought