Ponniyin Selvan play - a labour of love
“Kalki” Krishnamurthy is a master story teller with none to surpass him. People used to wait with bated breath for his novels serialized in Tamil weeklies for several years, just like how we wait to catch an episode of our favourite soap now. His magnum opus “Ponniyin Selvan” is a family-favourite. An historical marvel contained in 5 stonking volumes, reading it evokes an array of emotions ranging from romance to martyrdom and plays out in our minds better than any movie ever did, thanks to a God given gift to mankind called imagination. One of the many incredible aspects of the book is the amount of painstaking research ‘Kalki’ had put in to write the 2400-pages-long-epic. He is said to have read every piece of Sangam literature available on the era (upon which the book is set) and had even visited Srilanka a number of times to gather facts. No wonder all the effort has paid off so well – a gem of a book that is every Tamil book lover’s delight. It has been exactly...