Alright, i know this isn’t the kinda post one would expect on my page, but hear me out.
The poster right here is of the Tamil movie that’s releasing tomorrow, “Ponniyin Selvan”. Ponniyin selvan loosely translates to ‘River Cauvery’s son’, and this film is based on the 70 year old, 5 volume novel of Kalki.
Let me explain why this story is so dear to Tamil people, and why Indians should celebrate it just as much as they do the epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharat;
The author of this novel, Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy alias Kalki, was an Indian freedom fighter, who went to jail a few times. This novel, according to him, was a way of reminding Indians that they have a history of their own. Mind you, this is after 200 years of colonialism.
This spectacular novel is based on the Kingdom of the Cholas, and is set in the 9th century which was the peak of the Chola Empire. The story can be classified as a historic fiction, as some of the main characters are fictionalised or even completely made up in order to appease the “outsiders” that is us.
‘Ponniyin selvan’, or the Son of cauvery, is the name given to King Raja Raja Chola I. He has two siblings, Aditya Karikalan, who is the Crown Prince, and his elder sister, Kunthavai (Koon-da-vy) who is the princess of the Chola Empire and basically controlled everything. Their dad, Sundara Chola is the emperor of the Chola Empire but is bed ridden during the time of the story. All the characters I mentioned till now are real people, who have been mentioned in carvings and historic artifacts preserved till this day, but the characters I’m about to write about next are fictionalised characters by Kalki. One might think, since the title of the novel is “Ponniyin Selvan”, it only makes sense that Raja Raja Chola is the main character, but NOH. The main character, the character who travels and whom we travel with, is Vanthiyathevan (Vun-diya-devan). It is important to know that Vanthiyathevan isn’t entirely fictionalised, he is also mentioned in history, but not till the extent of the description given in the novel. Last but not the Least, my personal favourite, Nandini. She invented the word supervillain. I’m serious, the more you read about her, the more you grow to hate and like her at the same time. She’s such an incredibly written character that at times it’s so unbelievable that she’s not actually real. Her thirst for vengeance and power is what sets the course of this entire story.
Now let me give you a brief intro to this story (and try not to spoil anything eee)
Aditya Karikalan (The Crown Prince) sends his good friend and trusted messenger, Vanthiyathevan, to deliver two letters to two members of his family. His father Sundara Chola, and his sister Kunthavai. He also sends him on a mission, to find out what and who is conspiring against him in his homeland, while he’s fighting wars up north.
This journey of Vanthiyathevan, is met with a lot of hurdles and he also meets a lot of people who help him with his tasks such as his old friend Kandhamara, whom Vanthiyathevan previously fought in a battle with, Nambi, who is a staunch believer of Vaishnavism and an absolute mastermind, often wears metaphorical masks around certain people, Chendan Amudhan, who is…an interesting character (that feeling when u really wanna say something but don’t wanna spoil). What forms the plot of the story is How Vanthiyathevan delivers these messages? What is conspiring against Aditya Karikalan? Who is Nandini, and why does she want revenge?
Ok i know that was a bad summary, but i literally could not say anything without spoiling stuff.
So the main reason why I wanted to post about this was because I feel every Indian should know about the rich history of our country and the Chola Empire, which ruled the entirety of India at one point. So I urge all of you to read some background in wikipedia and watch the movie cuz its a pretty damn good story.
Fin.
