Fireball

Hello everyone,

First of all,welcome! Well,since i’ve decided to start posting,i may be posting once or twice a week. This post is from the Computational Aerodynamics laboratory of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science , Bangalore. The IISc Campus is excellent when compared to National Institute of Technology Trichy.

This post,I’m going to have a short review about the book Parthiban Kanavu,by Kalki.

Story-Outline

• Parthiban Kanavu is a novel, basically on Tamil History.It is about the Chola and Pallava Kings.
• Parthiban, a chola king whose rule is suppressed by the dominant pallava king Narasimha Varma(Mammallan) has a life long dream of bringing up the Chola Dynasty the best in the world.
• He dreams and draws in a building called Chitramandapam (if i’m not wrong!)
• Finally there is a war between the cholas and pallavas where cholas fight bravely.
• Parthiban, in his last breath gives his wishlist to a Sadhu, who turns out to be Narasimha Varma in disguise.
• The rest of the story is all about how Parthiban’s son, Vikraman gets back to the throne.

Being my first Tamil novel, this is a red-carpet welcome for the starters. The language used is as simple as in daily magazines. The role of Narasimha Varma is excellent. If this novel had been a play in my school, I would try to act as him!

It proceeds like a advetureous english novel,where the Pallava king comes in various disguises, including a role of secret service man. Besides the story, a lot of interest has been given on the situation of Tamil Nadu in that time. The Island(I forgot the name!) where they mention as the place where Vikraman takes his throne has been splendidly described.

There is also romance involved, i.e Vikraman is in love with Kundavi, daughter of Narasimha Varmar.But most of the pages goes along with dreams of people(Though the book is about dreams). The part in which Vikraman thinks a lot in the ship is rather unnecessary.

Besides, this book costed Re.1.50! (From my grand-father’s library!)