a sequel to ponniyin selvan? you must be mad

a sequel to ponniyin selvan?

you must be mad. this is a comment i got more than once.

kalki’s ponniyin selvan was firmly entrenched in the tamil novel reader’s mind. his charecters frozen in time.

any changes to them including the process of aging would be sacrilegious

but by the time i had finished kalki’s fifth volume of ponniyin selvan i had decided that it would be me who would write a sequel to it.

me?

i who hadnt written much tamil. I couldnt even get  my la lha  right

could i even dream of writing a sequel to what many think is the greatest tamil novel ever written.

but then the more i thought about it the more it seemed possible. a sequel was just waiting to be written. kalki had left so many openings and in a show of magnanimity had even placed a request on record. someone who can write a continue this story, please do””

unfortunately somebody who tried- vikraman was threatened with court action. but he went along anyway and finished his novel with those charecters kalki had borrowed from history. i didnt have that hassle. there was no copyright for kalki’s works.

any body who finished reading ponniyin selvan wonders what would have happened to kalki’s charecters five years after he left them? he had given a few clues.

kundavai and vanthiyathevan had married…senthan amudan was the chola king, the boat girl pungkuzhali was the empress.but what happened to the rest? the cholas, the pandya rebels, the princes and the commoners.

in my mind i could sense their yearning to be alive again, their longing to adorn the pages of yet another novel.     yes, i decided i would do it. a story formed in mind.

And then came  …….

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