My love affair with "Ponniyin Selvan" started when I was slogging my butt out in Japan. Having travelled abroad for the first time (and unwittingly during winter), I greatly missed what one would take-for-granted during most of his life - the food and scents of his mother-land.
Sevikunavilladha podhu siridhu vayitrukkum eeyappadum
Well, I tried to quench my thirst for my mother-land, by savoring the literary treats in tamil - available on the net. Well, that was my another first - really using the internet for a purpose. I found sumeetha's english translation of "Ponniyin Selvan" on zine5
I was amazed at how detailed the story was. History is so interwined in the story, it is difficult to make out where history stops and fiction begins. The handling of the narration is a novelty in itself. Sometimes when the author talks to the reader in first-person, it really pains to put the book down. Especially the description of the bazaars of south-india, make me turn around and search for those elements in the market street of Nanganallur when I walk past.
Later on, when I bought my own tamil version of the book, I was amazed at how simple (and thus efficient) Sumeetha's translation was. In fact, when I read the book in tamil, I didnt feel like I was reading it for the first time at all! Rather, I felt the that the english translation was handled with such ease that the language (as it usually would especially when dealing with stories of a variant land) didnt matter at all. What kalki was for "Ponniyin Selvan", Sumeetha is for "Ponni's Beloved". Way to go, Sumeetha.
"Ponniyin Selvan" would be my 'beloved' forever. I salute Kalki for his painstaking efforts, to seamlessly merge history with fiction and provide an epic that would make souls dance with glee about the ages gone by, for ages to come.
