An Enigma called ‘Arulmozhi Varman’

What an exciting last few months… How lucky I am… How proud should I be… Conspirators, Assassins, Spy game, The great Indian dynasty.. you can title it anything but in Tamil, its called PONNIYIN SELVAN… By par, the best book I ever read so far.

I read first 200 pages of the book several times in the past but never got a good stretch of breaks to finish the rest… few months ago, I decided I should do what ever it takes and finish the book.. Lots of my friends suggested me to read this book for past 8 years and finally, I felt lucky, privileged and proud that I managed to enjoy every page of this amazing art work by Kalki Krishnamoorthy.

The base line story is a series of true historic events blended with fictions. The title Ponniyin Selvan is actually the greatest king of chozha dynasty, Arulmozhi Varman who never wanted to be the emperor in the beginning. Ironically, the circumstances forced him to take up the throne and went on to be the THE ONE

I have downloaded the ebook in to my ipad and disastrously addicted reading the book. Though the story title is about the king Arulmozhi Varman (Raja Raja Chozha), the actual hero is Vanar kulla Vanthiya Thevan who went in to lots of adventures to serve the Chozha Empire. There are like 1 million characters in the book. Most of them play significant role in this historical wonder.

More than the history and the narrational beauty, I really really admire the indepth knowledge of the writer (Kalki) on the geography. The names of the cities 1000 years ago, the various routes that connects the cities, the transportation methods they used, the communication methods they used, the names of rivers, the various events/festivals etc., Remember, this book is written in 1950 way before the internet and other modern communication techniques existed. One needs extreme patience and pure passion for history to come out with such a master piece. Read the book and you will agree.

Dear reader, if you know to read Tamil and if you have passion for history and if you think you already read best of best thriller/action/drama books, read this before you die. The first 100 pages or so will test your patience with too many characters and unconnected incidents but keep reading if you wanna get addicted.

I truly wish this should turn out to be a movie and here is my favorite casting if at all a movie could be made out of this book.

Direction : Sankar / Maniratnam
Production : Only Sun Pictures
Music : A R Rehman
Vanthiya Thevan : Vikram
Arulmozhi Varman : Surya
Azhvarkadiyaan : Rahman
Aditya Karikaalan : Sampath (the gay character in Goa)
Kundavai : Vidya Balan
Vanathi : Tamanna
Poonguzhali : Anjali (Angadi theru fame)
Manimegalai : Amala Paul
Periya Pazhvettarayaar : Satyaraj
Chinna Pazhuvettarayar : Prakash Raj
Anbil Anirudhar : Naasar
Sundara Chozhar : Jayaprakash (Pasanga fame)
Mandagini (Oomai raani) and Nandini: Nathiya – Double act
Maduranthakar : Aarya
Senthan Amuthan : Abbaas
Parthibendran : Arjun
Kanthamaaran : Sonu Sood
Pinagapani : Karthik (America maplai character)

Whatever the casting is, if given to right directors, heavy budget producer and good technical crew, am sure the movie will be a milestone in Indian cinema. I am so looking forward.

Here are the Ebook links if you are intrested...

To read it as Tamil PDF book

To read it in English

To read it Online

I am now all geared up to start reading the sequel, UDAYAR by Balakumaran :)