Ponniyin Selvan - the greatest novel ever written. When i went to the book fair this jan, i came across this novel and the sheer size and the volume of the books surprised me... there were totally 5 books in the package and all of them were huge (last one was the biggest).
Nevertheless i decided to buy "Ponniyin Selvan", came back home glanced through first few pages and forgot all about the book... I thought i would never be able to completely read the novel as it was really huge and i didn't have time to spend for "Ponniyin Selvan".
One Saturday i was extremely bored and didn't have anything else to do and started reading the first chapter. "ஒரு பானை சோற்றுக்கு ஒரு சோறு பதம் " The first chapter was enough for me to get hooked into the novel... That was all, after that i just couldn't get away from the book....
Remember that this novel came in the weekly magazine "KALKI" in the 1950's.. i always used to wonder how people could contain their excitement till they got to read the next chapter... the plot is woven such that the suspense is carried throughout the novel.... Kalki would have written in such a way that at any given point the story will go in different places, be it Kodiyakarai, Thanjavur, ilangai, Nagapattinam or Pazhayaarai - He will carry the story back and forth between these places and he would leave a suspense waiting at the end of every chapter...
Ponniyin Selvan - though it is hailed as a great historic novel, was written only based on some loose historic facts surrounding the death of Adhithya Karikaal Cholan and how RajaRaja Cholan ascended the throne. It is written in simple tamil and though kalki quotes certain poems from Tamil Literature he has explained the meaning in a simple manner. For people who are well versed with செந்தமிழ் and பைந்தமிழ் this book will be a treat to read.
I used to get up really early in the morning and go to sleep late in the night to read "Ponniyin Selvan", for two months the only thing i was doing other than going to office was reading "Ponniyin Selvan". It was so gripping and exciting
After travelling alongwith Vanthiyathevan, after walking with Kundavai and Nandini in the palaces of Thanjavur, After swimming with Arulmozhi varman and poonguzhali i felt really lonely when the novel ended... so i started to look into online forums to get more information related to the novel and i am sharing all the links so that you too can enjoy "Ponniyin Selvan" to a great extent.
VIDEOS:
Click on the below links:
>> Video about RajaRaja Cholan by BBC - the great chola king(Skip 23:00 mins)
>> Video about the Architectural beauty of the Thanjavur Periya kovil - by bbc (Skip 7:00 mins )
:: RajaRajeshwaram - a trailer video for the documentary film on Tanjore Big Temple (Brahadeeshwarar Temple)
PICTURES:
You need to be signed into orkut to view the below pictures:
>> Cover Pictures of Ponniyin Selvan - (Maniyan's artistic excellence)
>> Complete collection of pictures when it was published in Kalki - Contains pictures from first 4 parts
>> Some more pictures related to ponniyin selvan
:: பொன்னியின் செல்வன் சித்திரங்கள் - சுழற் காற்று
EBOOKS:
>> To read it as Tamil PDF book
>> To read it in English (I am not sure how the English version will be)
>> To read it Online
PODCAST of the entire novel.
Those of you who would shy away from reading Tamil books, here is a open challenge just read the first 4 or 5 chapters of "Ponniyin Selvan" and see if you could resist from reading the full book. I am not trying to compare "Ponniyin Selvan" with any other books but "Ponniyin Selvan" is truly a masterpiece....
I will be happy to help you if you need any more reference links regarding "Ponniyin Selvan"
If you have finished reading "Ponniyin Selvan" you can get yourself involved in the following discussion forums:
>> http://www.ponniyinselvan.in/
>> Orkut community for Ponniyin Selvan
Enjoy reading the greatest EPIC of Tamil HISTORY!!!!
30 comments:
I happened to see a 1950s edition da. My director has it. It was gr8. The drawings were just like as you will imagine the characters. Will try to get some photos.
Hi da,
I've heard a lot about this novel and would like to read it. Sadly, I'm ashamed to say that my Tamil reading is pathetic. What is your suggestion - learn to read Tamil well enough and read the novel or try reading it in English?
Hey cow,
Thats why i have provided the podcast link... you can listen to each and every chapter in tamil.
you can also download and listen.
I personally feel the essence of the novel would be lost in any translated language!!
So better read/listen in Tamil
Cow,
I ts not abt knowing tamil. My bro dint know tamil. My mom used to read it to him.after some time he cudnt resist till my mom could come so he started reading and now he learnt to read tamil just to finish it.
This is so addictive that u would actually make u go into an another world...
Hi Shiva and Rocket,
I did realize there is the podcast as also an English translation, but I would like to do justice to Kalki the literary genius as well as Kalki the master story-teller. I believe the language used to narrate the story is just as incredible as the story itself, and hence wanted to know if there was an equivalent English translation.
But as Rocket says, his brother might be an inspiration for me to learn Tamil just for this one masterpiece.
I have been an admirer of Tamil literature and the elegance of the Tamil language for some time now in the recent past, and would like to be able to feel it more directly. :)
Sorry da Ajay, I meant Bullet, not rocket. :D
Thanks for providing me the link to your blog entry w.r.t PS. Well I read this novel during my 12th std school holidays and that too the version I got was collected from Kalki magazine by a friend of my father! God the only thing I did during those days was reading this novel continuosly! I left it only when I took bath and when I sleep (which was shortened due to the addiction to this novel!)there were days when I didn't sleep at all and continued reading!!! - Naren
Thats wonderful naren... Also if you are interested watch the videos which i have provided.. one is about Raja Raja Cholan and the next one is about Tanjore Big Temple :)
:-) Thanks Shiva..... those videos were pretty old ones!!!! think I saw them a very long ago!!!!
All, I read it serialized in 1967-...
Not all of it, read all a bit later.
Tamil version is better and I understand the beauty of the language. I shall read the Eng vers and comment later. If you are lang challenged as my children are; maybe you want to learn Tamil and read it or read Eng ver for now and Tamil for later! You need a strong resolve to do the later at a later time. Thx. KariKalan's elder brother!
I wanted to do a painting of Kundavai with a sample of Maniam's original illustrations on Kalki... The links in your blog were extremly helpful... Thank you, very much!
Now Vantiyathevan can be spotted in Weeb 2.0 Yes. He is using Twitter and you can follow his tweets on http://twitter.com/vantiyathevan
I happend to read Paarthiban kanavu and sivagaamiyin sabatham way before reading this novel... I donno the chronology of Kalki's novels but all were exceptional.. u can read also these both were awesome
ur frnd
ranjit
Hai Shiva,Thanks a lot for ur contribution.I happened to see this link just now.I am very much excited.I had read it during my PG.I felt very bad for not reading it earlier.Better Late than never.I get motivated on reading Varmar whenever i feel tired,bored and lazy.We get an enthu to achieve and be active.Thanks again Shiva.
Vanakkam Nanbargale
I have just completed the audio book of Bagam - 1 Ponniyin Selvan - All the mp3 - downloadable - that you can listen on itunes or wherever you are -- is here at
http://www.itsdiff.com/kalkips.html
Ungal karuthukkalai aavaludan ethirpaarkum
Sri - Sanfrancisco bay area, CA
itsdiff@gmail.com
www.tamizhradio.com
AakoSiva, Good work. Keep it up. Pls delete the spam. We all got the spam msg, as I had subscribed to tracking any posts here.
Kannan, Thanks a lot.... i have always made a sincere attempt to clear all the spam comments... i was not in town for two days and didn't have any net connectivity... thats why couldn't delete those comments...
will keep the blog post as clean as possible...
Once again thanks a lot :D
Hi shiva,
I am a BE student in CBE. Am very much excited to know that there are people like me, who are much crazy on Ponniyin Selvan ....
Actually I saw my friend always reading Ponniyin selvan in class room. I kept that in mind and asked her the book once she had finished it.
I started reading this book without any expectations but, as you said,once I've finished the first few chapters itself ,I've become an addict to it. The thing I was doing except Going to college n sleeping was reading , reading, reading. :)
Really feel like missing each n every character. Hope I'll get time to read it again. :)
Sri's work is awesome...It makes it easy to listen and propogate Kalki's novel once it is transcribed to digital form.Sri adds life to each character thru his voice modulations which makes visualising the character easier..
Good Job Sri..
-- Aravind
hai shiva,
i just finished it after a long confusing, interesting, thrilling, restless one month of reading.
As a tamilan we should be proud of having such a novel like this.. Your promotions of this novel should prolong forever.
hey frndz....!!! GEETH here...
here is the second over-enthusiastic person next to shivs..!
rite now,am in d 3rd part of this GR8 epic...(really ashamed 2 say dat i havnt yet finishd it :-[ )
and the problem with me is diz....
iam just so confused wenever i read any single para of diz rocking novel as i dnt kno whether 2 proceed 4 d forth-coming thrilling nd interesting chapters of diz never-ending ocean,...
or
keep on reading the previous enthusiastic,romantic,humorous nd entertaining chapters which evn disturb my late night sleep...!!???
ny suggestions???
nd I wud lyk 2 kno whose fans u al r, in diz rocking novel "PS" ......!!!! :-)
hi
i have completed reading the great book "ponniyin selvan"..awesome book that has every quality to pull the reader towards it .Actualy this is first ever book i have read .
Hi Aako,
The link >> Complete collection of pictures when it was published in Kalki - Contains pictures from first 4 parts -- on your blog does not work in Orkut. Could you fix it or provide a link where I can see the pictures?
Thanks a lot.
Hi,
Some 5 years back a tamilian friend used to read the novel ponniyin selvan and tell me the story every night. I loved the story so much , that i used to compel her to finish the chanpters fast and narrate me the story. Unfortunately she couldn't complete the story. I am dying to read the novel. The english translation url doesn not work. do you know where i can get the english translation book. Thanks..
may be a very delayed comment; i have read the book when it was serialised in kalki two times;
while most internet has the ProjectMadurai book links, nobody seems to notice the errors in the ebook rendering; though the mistakes are very small (some typo, wrong juxtaposing of words etc ) in the first four volumes, the fifth volume has major mistakes with missing paragraphs!
i am surprised all people commenting that they have read the ebook; how come they never noticed?
for example in chapter 13 kundavai ketta varam, there is a hugechunk of text missing!
can anybody point out the correct complete source, other than ta.wiki where you can only read each chapter but now download it easily.
regards
neelakantan
Friends, I'm really feel happy as I came to know and got chance to start reading Ponniyin Selvan in Tamizh. I realize how I missed the book earlier..
After starting reading the book.. I can say my way of picturising words and my imaginations are increased.. I now really look deep in the words and picturise them with the experience I got in reading the book.
I really wonder what a wonderful epic this is which made me reading books in such pace I never seen before, Some days I end up reading more than 150 pages (in Project Madhurai E-books using Kindle) a day, without knowing that.. Its really awesome.
After reading many of the scenes, I ended up reading late night, and even at sleep many imaginations and thoughts will be there related to the scenes, making me to sleep late.
Kalki's way of portraiting the story and scenes are really awesome, and this is the main source to many story writers and movie directors how to do them. Kalki's imagination, and story telling and wordings, etc.. are exceptional..
I'm still at 5th part and in earlier chapters, I am now really eager in knowing how the story will move on.. With the advent of the book, I came to know the great history of Chozas, and I about the sceneries of many places. Along with the characters I have travelled to many places, which I didn't travelled before, and I got used to those place, and still to go..
I'm very happy that here are many people who are really freak on Ponniyin Selvan like me. I decided that after finishing reading this, I'll read this again, to know where I really not attentive in reading the story and clear them. Again I decided to read in English so that this will also improve my vocabulary with help of having equivalent Tamizh version.
After this, I encourage many of my friends to read this book, And I even started a fan page for Ponniyin Selvan (in G+).
Looking forward to get an Audio version.
Everybody enjoy reading Ponniyin Selvan. :)
@neelakantan..
Hi neelakantan.. Apart from Project Madhurai, in Tamil Wiki Source, there is full version of Ponniyin selvan without the mistakes.
http://ta.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8A%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%86%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D
We can make PDF for each chapters, Or with buying some time, we can compile nice and flawless Ponniyin Selvan book from that.. This is especailly for the readers who read in Computer or in Ebook Reader. For book readers, just go for low price edition which is as low as Rs.350 (whole 5 parts! I really supprised of this when I bought), or there is good Print of Ponniyin Selvan with source Images from Vikatan Publication which is around Rs. 1000-1300 but requires booking (I'm yet to try this).
Enjoy reading Ponniyin Selvan! :)
HAI SHIVA
when i started learning this book i felt very proud to be a tamizhan.i am very happy there are many fans for ponniyin selvan.
HAI SHIVA,
I STARTED LEARNING THIS BOOK IN MY 12TH HOLIDAYS.I FINISHED THIS BOOK IN 10 DAYS.I AM VERY HAPPY THAT THERE ARE MANY FANS OF OUR BEST FRIEND VALLAVARAIYAN VANDIYADEVAN.
TAMIZHAN ENDRU SOLADA THALAI
NIMIRUNDU NILLADA
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