Dear Krupa and freinds That was excellent... without knowing Krupa has just started a wonderful thread...
the circumstances and nature and impact of your first read of PS....
It would be very interesting to know and share our experience of the first date with PS I can unashamedly call it a date because for most of us PS has become a secret love....and obsession
My first read of PS was when I was in 3rd / 4th Standard .
My father was working in mysore for three years and my kindergarden to second standard first language was english and seconda language was kannada and we spoke in tamizh in the house so spoken tamizh was not a problem......(unlike my brother who could converse well in kannada like a native and struggled in tamil you know who it is)
so when we moved to vellore...good scores in all subjects except tamil in the Entrance in Ida Scudder School ...with assurances from my parents that they ll improve my tamizh skills I was admited.
Both my parents were in teachers my father was an assistant professor in TNAU before he joined the bank and my mother was a school teacher and the strategy they used was simple make learning interesting by getting me to read something I liked....enter muthu comics enter kumudam and vikatan...what started with jokes and cartoon graduated to short stories and then serials....
My father has a habit of collecting all thodarkathais and binding them....so I started with them.....first sujathas ganesh vasanth very interesting....then My uncle came home for summer holidays in his final MBBS and read PS nonstop....I only started with the picture side of things first....It was very interesting I had just read Rajarajachola in amarchitrakatha and wanted to read the story....
My plan was to read one volume every summer...but lo ....I couldnt put it down and went on to finish the whole thing in a run......
Very impressive the only thing that left me puzzled was how could human beings say one thing now and change it agin switch alliances and even love for that matter......
but after years of experience I understand Kalki had written the story with mortals who constantly change and evolve some for the good and others for worse.....
I must say VD had taught me a lot in handling life from the basic punainthuraithal...not lies but distorting the truth to suit yourself to the timely sense of survival
that was the fisrt time but then PS became a habit every summer it was like goinmg to grandmas place in thanjavur every summer I felt proud when I saw the gopuram when the fitting Cholan express entered thanjavur..Made me proud to be walking in the soil....have wondered what science and philosophy they must have had to build the thakshina meru
When I left for UK in 97 one of my freinds in US said email me as soon as you reach UK and I said Email? that was my literacy as far as interent and resources were concerned....
Started to work in Manchester learned about email and search engines( my registrar explinaed how we could look upon articles and papers)I waited till he left the room and tried PS in google.....nothing two years later I saw the english version of Indra Kalmegam not very impressed and then finally the group....
Namaskara PS koota, Nanna hesaru Thilak. Kshamisi, Idhu Kannada basha. Thumba chennagidha? Sari...? Ee mail ellige hoguthe? Idhu torture-u.. Nimmalukku beda... Let me come to the point. Sorry.. Got carried away! Long long ago, so long ago when I knew neither tamil or english, idhe namma basha.. Now things are different. I dont remember many words in kannada, talking to/listening to my Kannada friend here is the only touch I have with the language. Sometimes it doesnt work, though. "Enu Meghraj saare, chennagidhara?" "Pretty good Thilak, How about you?" End of conversation in Kannada ;) I didnt start reading PS as early as my 4th. It was much later, in 7th/8th when I started reading, and havent kept count. The last time was in 2002. I didnt google (now google has become a verb!) and stumble upon the group, as many of you did (except Ram, of course;) ). I was told about the group, and, here I am. End of story. Dhanyavadagalu, Nanu vapas baruthene, Prema, Thilak
The mails flown so far on this subject reveal two important things: Every word is written from the bottom of the heart; Every one has some KAVIDHAI (Literature) in one's self. Great ...Very interesting beginning ...
I was reading lot of fictions and other Tamizh books during school & college days .. Sujatha - Indumathi .. and English novels. After employment - during 80s- Thi.Janakiraman - Na.Parthasarathy - Jayakanthan ....Pudukkavithaigal -Kanaiyazhi etc.,
I read Sree Venugopalan's Thiruvarangan Ula & Madura Vijayam as serial when published in Dhinamanikkadhir in 80s. That kindled interest for History based Novels.. Sandilyan's Kadalpura was the obvious choice.... Hit... When discussed among some close family friends, Balaji & Lavanya's parents suggested PS .. and lent me the bound volumes published earlier in Kalki... I think I read all the 5 volumes in 3 nights...not able to put down the books...
First time it appealed to me as a love story of Vandhiyathevan & Kundavai ... Arumozhi character was (I thought so) sub-dued in comparison to Vandhiathevan..
Later on - when re-read - it appealed as Political novel.... Whoever spoke to me shared something in common: Are the places real? Are there traces left behind? How do they look like now?
It took some time for me to identify Patteeswaram as Pazhayarai (in the 80s).. visited Chozhan maligai .. Big Temple.. started reading more on this .. collected more details .. landed at Udayarkudi .. visited Kodikkarai - Udayalur and other places .. Discussions with scholars on the subject ... Now this has become a research material ...
Balaji Venkiteswaran (Ram's friend) and his sister Lavanya (actually their parents only lent me the PS Volumes first as told earlier!) discussed about starting a PS group. Balaji agreed to block PS.com for whatever it is worth. Later on they told that the group is started and was carrying on. I took them to Kodikkarai and other places ..
About a year back Kamal called me over phone for a discussion ...That is when I joined this group ... When I went through the mails, I realised how much I have already missed this wonderful group ...
Dr. Sridhar is absolutely correct.. It is a kind of love .. passion .. addiction ...
I would like to suggest to the Government :For example : Please rename DHARMAPURI as " Jaganatha valanattu keezhur kottathu Dhananatha chathurvedi mangalam (alias) DHARMAPURI .. so that next generation does not lose track of history and heritage .."