Sivakamiyin Sabatham & Paruthi Veeran

The above two has nothing common except both throws limelight on two women characthers Sivakami & Muttazhagu, respectively and Both being classics in their own form. I had a personal thread connecting them as i wished very long to read the former and to view the latter. But untill recently i couldnt do those both.

Sivakamiyin sabatham is a Tamil classic written by kalki in 1946. Its an historic novel centering around the great Pallava king Mahendra Pallavan whose passion for
sculptures gave birth to Mammallapuram which derives its name from his son Narasimma Pallavan alias Mammallan. It opens with an heroic scene in the streets of kanchipuram (the historic capital of Pallavas) and goes on with the developments of war with Pulikesi and finally ends with the looting of Vathapi, the then capital of Chaulkyas. Though it was written some 6 decades back, still it has all the ingredients of an commercial cini story to such an extent that i couldnt stop reading it for a day. Day and night i completed this 4 volume classic in a week. That inspires me to catch Kalki's other classics Parthiban kanavu, Ponniyin Selvan & Alai osai.

Similarly Paruthi veeran, as all we know is an off-beat hit from Ameer, released in 2006. Usually i owe not to write reviews for the films which i didnt saw in theatre. But i couldnt resist writing about this movie. After Bharathiraja(specifically after Kizhaku chemayile) this is one among the films which captured every aspect of a Tamil village starting from the festival till the very end, including typical Madurai Tamil slang.

In line with Kalki , Amir has also made me to think about watching his previous classics MounamPesiyathe & Ram. Last movie in which i was emotionally carried away was Pithamagan. May be this film will also be in that list had i watched it in theatre!

I at some lighter times had been advised/suggested/criticised by people that by not boozing or smoking or abstaning from Non-veg, been missing a color in my life. Though i am not reciproacting them inparticular but in general those people with good flair in Tamil and with some leisure shouldnt miss reading such classics like "Sivakamiyin sabatam" even if some contemporary writings are missed.

The very fact that still there is an active e-group in Yahoo & community in orkut speaks a lot for kalki's writings. These novels and Various other Tamil classics can be downloaded from here.

And the scoop news is "Katrathu Tamizh" - starting to win acclodes. So It has to be watched.