Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan

I successfully finished reading Ponniyin Selvan (2nd time). This is not going to be a review. Just what I felt.

This is not a story about how RajaRaja Chola became a king. This is about the events happened before that. The writing is so great that, Raja Raja Chola will be introduced “as a character himself” only in the middle of 2nd volume (out of 5 volumes). Till then, he will be mentioned. By the time the introduction was made, I started admiring Raja Raja Chola and eagerly waiting for the introduction to happen 🙂 If at all this was made as a movie, by the right people, the introduction scene can create the same (or even more) effect as Baasha interval scene. It has the potential. The climax is wonderful.

At times, it has great humour. Also, there are some big suspenses. But, I still could not get an answer for one big question.. Who is the real ___ of ___ ? Sorry… I cannot fillup the blanks without revealing a suspense 😀 But, you will be able to guess this when you read the book. If you know the answer, do let me know. The character says something.. but, the circumstances seems to be totally different.

This book also shows us the respect people had on Thirukkural. Loved it more than the first time.. I think each time I read it, I get more involved. I don’t know when, But I’ll read it again.. 🙂 If you have time, I recommend you READ IT. If you don’t have time, FIND TIME AND READ IT !!

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Kalki’s Sivakamiyin Sabatham

As I said in the previous post, I am back to share my thoughts about “Sivakamiyin Sabatham”.

This is a prequel to Parthiban kanavu. ie. In Parthiban Kanavu, Narasimha Pallava might be around in his 40s. (My guess!!) But Sivakamiyin Sabatham is his 20s-30s. (If I am wrong, Kalki Plz forgive me.)

The story is as follows: Mahendra Varma Pallava is ruling the Pallava kingdom. His son Narasimha Palla has fallen in love with Sivakami, the greatest dancer in that period. Meanwhile, Pulikesi is trying conquer Kanchi and as he could not, he takes Sivakami with him and cause a serious injury to Mahendra Varma pallava. Narasimha Pallava goes to rescue Sivakami. Did he succeed? Did he married Sivakami? Did Pulikesi die? Read the book. Don’t come to conclusions about the answers/climax 😉

In Parthiban Kanavu, Kalki have mentioned about Mahendra Pallava being intelligent. I didn’t get a measure of how much. But, here, there is a situation in which, he invites Pulikesi to Kanchi for a visit. The arrangements he makes were amazing. He sends somebody out of the fort, invites somebody to the fort. Reason behind those actions were amazing. I could understand the reason behind these actions. (And that made be accept his intelligence.) Though, this is being explained later in the story. And there is one more talent he got. But I dont want to reveal it. It might be a spoiler for Parthiban Kanavu.

From the book, I could learn about ancient culture. Like, their bravery, attitude towards war, the kings’ interests in art, to name a few..

How much those kings celebrated Art. Especially the Pallavas.. They started carving statues from rocks. It became my desire to go to mahabalipuram atleast once. Unfortunately, I have never been there. 😦

Also, when the Pallavas go to fight Pulikesi, Kalki has mentioned that, people were wearing new dresses.. decorated their houses.. As if it was a festival.. The most I was expecting was a big cheer from the people to the soldiers.

And about politics, from the words of Mahendra Varma Pallava, Kalki has explained what all the difficulties of being a king. What is the difference between an ordinary person and a ruler. Simply, WOW…

And as this is a love story, there is a chapter in which Narasimha Varma explains his love to Sivakami.. Simply superb..

I have started reading Ponniyin Selvan.. But so far, I think, that Sivakamiyin Selvan is the best. 🙂

Kalki’s Parthiban Kanavu

A Book Review now. This is about a tamil book classic. Who am I to review this book?? So read it as, My thoughts on this book. 😀

Sometime back I went to the public library near my house. I saw a few historical novels by an author called Udhayanan. (I liked all the books except one thing that was common. ie. Introducing a character called Udhayanan in all the books.) Historical novels are part of my favorite reads. (I never scored good marks in history and that is a different story :D). So I thought let me give it a try and started reading it. It brought back my memories of the days (abt 15 yrs back. Believe me I read those books in my school days.) I read Sandilyan’s books like Kadal Pura and Raja muthirai. As I have lost those books, I thought of buying them and re-read them. Slowly this became a desire and I decided to buy those books the next time I go to my native. Also I have heard about Kalki and his creations like Parthiban Kanavu, Sivakamiyim Sabatham and Ponniyin Selvan. So decided to buy those books too.

Enough of history. Lets first get started with Parthiban kanavu. (Yes!! You guessed it right.. There will be more posts about the other books too.) As said before, this is not a review just my view about the books.

The story is: (As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, NO SPOILERS. You can go ahead and read.)
Chola empire was flourishing at the time of the great Karikala chola and now it is not at its best now.It is just a small kingdom. King Parthiban is ruling the Chola kingdom and he refuses to pay duty to Narasimha Varma Pallava. As you have guessed right, Narasimha Varma pallava declares a war against him. Before going to war, Parthiban takes his son Vikaraman to a place where he has drawn paintings of the chola flag flying throughout India and even in other countries. But, the face of the king has not yet been painted. Parthiban explains Vikraman that, it is his desire to get back the fame that Chola kingdom has lost and expand the empire. And fulfill the paintings with the face of the king who achieves it. And again as you have guessed, King Parthiban looses his life in the battle. Before he passes away, a saint comes to him and Parthiban requests the saint to help his son achieve his dream.

To achieve his father’s dream, Vikraman starts with a protest. His uncle deceives him and he gets arrested by the Pallava soldiers. On the way to court, Vikraman sees a girl and falls in love with her. (Yes!!! You guessed it right about who this girl could be.) The pallava king exiles him and send him to an island. Vikraman becomes the king of the island and after three years he comes back to see his mother and the girl. When he comes back, he comes to know that his mother has been kidnapped by the head of the Kapalikas (These guys are known for giving human sacrifices.). With the help of the saint mentioned before, he finds his mother and wins the hand of the girl and did he fulfilled his father’s dream?

A couple of things that I thought that could have been better is: (Could be because of my ignorance about Kalki’s writing style)

In this story, there was room for a BIG suspense. While reading itself, if we could co-relate things, we can easily find out. (I did). So, at the end when the suspense was revealed in the story, it was not a surprise for me.

There were a few situations like Parthiban’s refusal to pay duty, and Vikraman’s argument with Narasimha Pallava about the protest were explained as 3rd person views. ie. Something like, people talking among themselves or somebody narrates to somebody else. If this has been explained directly, the impact would be better.

The good thing was: The bookplay. Back to back events. As this book is small, there was not much details. But in the next book, Sivakamiyin Sabatham, I liked a lot of things. Expect a post soon!!!

Harry Potter!!!

Im back…

Just a few days back I completed reading Harry Potter series. I wanted to write immediately about this. But somehow it got postponed. Seems like it was waiting for NOW. 🙂 No Spoilers. (I guess.) You can go ahead and read. If you found any spoilers, plz lemme know. I’ll correct them immediately.

The main story is like this. Harry’s parents are killed by Voldemort and he alone escapes miraculously. (How?? Is answered in the book) He is sent to his uncle’s house and there he spends his early life. Then he gets into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Then the story describes his adventures there and his encounters with Voldemort and what happens finally. Don’t come to conclusions about the climax now itself. Also, this is NOT a story in which Harry seeks his vengeance. Read the book to enjoy it 🙂

This is very very crude way of telling the story. (Sorry Rowling for making your story so crude.)

Even though with this simple story, the screenplay, in our case it is the bookplay is amazing. (I got a red underline below bookplay. Seems like I have coined a new word :D)

For a reader, the heartbeat will be in this pattern. 72,72,72…., 80, 80, 80,…., 72, 72, 72,…, 85, 85, 85…
If you really want to enjoy the book, just imagine yourself as Harry. NOTE: THIS IS ONLY DURING READING THE BOOK. If your heartbeat didn’t follow that pattern even after imagining yourself as Harry, you better check with a doc. 🙂
Really, my heart raced in all the books. Usually, before starting a new chapter, first I’ll check how many pages and then decide whether to read now or later. But in lot of places in the book, I didn’t even notice that a chapter has ended 🙂

And about a few characters: (The artists selected [till Snape] for the below mentioned characters in the movie were perfect choice.)

Harry: A hero. What will we expect from a HERO who is a schoolboy? Very high scores in exams, No jealousy, Non egoistic, Rule obeying. Harry is none of these 🙂 A mediocre student. Jealous but within a limit, Egoistic and never cares to obey the rules. In short, an ordinary boy as anybody else.

Ron: One of Harry’s very best friends. A bit of jealousy. But quite witty. In lot of cases, if you didn’t get (atleast) a smile while reading, you better quit reading 🙂

Hermione: Another of Harry’s very best friends. Number one in the class. Always reads more than anybody else. Very inquisitive. Knows more magic than Harry. A very lovable character.

Snape: Harry’s least favorite teacher. Read the book for more details and you’ll know why Im asking to read more. 🙂

Dumbledore: Headmaster of Hogwarts. Harry is his favorite student. A respectable gentleman.

Voldemort: The Villain. There is a chapter in Half blood Prince. On reading that itself, will make you realize how bad/ruthless he is.

Above all, its Rowling, who did the magic than anybody else :). I think she was born telling stories. I don’t know.. May he she might have studied psychology too. How people will feel and how others will react to that… Simply superb explanations. Quite a looooooooooot of twists and turns in the book. She has thought about all the characters and all the points in the story. I could not remember any looseends in the book. We’ll be thinking of something and it will turnout to be something else. And in some cases, I have had a few smiles when a character does as what I thought it should do.

I could not resist telling this:

• In Goblet of fire, there will be a misunderstanding between Harry and Ron. After that Harry will feel left alone. Nobody is with him. But when they meet again, I felt really happy. My spirits went high 🙂
• And towards the end of Half blood prince, something really bad will happen. 😀 (I don’t want to reveal). I felt, how Harry is going to do it (fighting Voldemort)??
• Some characters even I hated them. 🙂 Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Rita Skeeter and not to mention that Dolorus Umbridge.

I hesitated to start this book as I was expecting this book to be meant for children. I started the book first time. Read 2-3 pages with that thought. Then I got another book from a library and kept Harry Potter aside. After finishing that book, I started reading this. Once I finished a couple of chapters, I could not put it down and felt how I shouldn’t have kept it aside the first time :).

Even when I was reading, lot of people have told me “You still (Even at this age) read harry potter?”. I always say, “Read it and u’ll realize”.

This has almost everything. Fantasy, action, SUSPENSE (Really BIG BIG ONES), love, friendship, sadness, sacrifice, betrayal and the list goes on…

Who should read this book:

• Any children above 10 (I guess this when they start understanding stories).
• Any adult who has the child inside them active. I believe that every man/woman has a child inside their heart. (Scientifically it is mind. But, you know, we believe in heart more that mind.) As long as you remember that child and bring it out atleast once in a while, you will be young & happy like me. 😀

Few warnings:

• If you are reading to get sleep at night, I WILL NOT recommend this.
• If you have crossed around 50 pages and you are going to start a new chapter at night, DONT do it if you have to go to work in time the next day.
• If you ask me whether I should watch the movie or read the book, my suggestion will be to read the book to ENJOY it. Watch the movie, just to pass time and Im sure you will NOT get the heartbeat pattern I have mentioned before.

Verdict: Must read 🙂

“He Who Shrank” by Henry Hasse

I don’t understand my blogging pattern. Either I don’t blog for a loooong time or write blogs back to back. 🙂

This post is about a story I read recently. “He Who Shrank”. I heard that Isaac Asimov’s books are really good. So went to a shop and searched for his books and got a book with a collection of short stories from different authors. This story by Henry Hasse, is one among them.

Why a review suddenly? The concept of this story was really amazing. It is highly probable. But unimaginable.

The story goes on like this: There will be a scientist. He will create a solution (liquid). When this is injected to a person, he will keep on shrinking. (Wondering what made him to create such a solution??? If you expect it is for money or power, Sorry!!!) And the scientist will inject it to his assistant (Poor guy!!!). He will keep on shrinking and travel to other worlds. (How come he can travel to other worlds while he is shrinking? If this is your question, you have to wait :)) He wont do much there. Just traveling.. traveling.. traveling…

So answers for the questions: If you get the answer to the first question, you get it for the second too!!!

The reason the scientist created such a solution is: The sun is the center of the galaxy. All the planets are revolving around it. (As if nobody knows.) Similarly, nucleus is the center of an atom and all the electrons are revolving around the nucleus. There exists millions of galaxies. There are millions of atoms too. Atoms forms molecules. Molecules forms matter/object. (Cummon Mani!!! Come to the point.)

So, why not earth be such an electron and that electron is a part of a HUGE object and that in turn an atom of a MASSIVE object? (Sit back and think over it).

So the assistant will go into an electron and FINDS LIFES there :). There too he will find oceans, trees, animals, human beings…. At first, it was difficult for me to digest this. But when I compared earth to electrons, I could understand it. In that world, as he is steadily shrinking, he will enter another electron in that world and so on and so forth.

Who knows??? Whether such a world exists on whatever objects we see :). I think that is why people say: “Don’t do wrong things. There is somebody always watching you” 😀