dear all one of the main discussions on the return journey was
the nature of the women in ps
please dhiwaker lets get serious. use the power of your humour encapsuled in your subject oriented answers.
did kunthavai manipulate vanathi( so that she could have a docile sis in law?) perhaps she thought she did not want any challengers for her influence on her brother
or was it vanathi who was actually manipulating kunthavai( her fainting fits came in for heavy criticism)
nanthini's manipulation of the various males. was it right because it was for the national cause
and was pungkuzhali the only one of the four heroines who did not manipulate the male race?
i hope the discussion would spread ovr to the rest of the members too.
We should take into account the important fact that character & behaviour of every women in PS is greatly influenced by the way they were brought up/comforts/family background/exposture.Family plays a very important role as females are more emotionally attached to everything.No women in Ps is potrayed as blunt rude or villi.
Accept the fact or not male races are greatly influenced by women in general knowingly or unknowingly.
Kundavai- She had maids to attend her personal chores, all the comforts and exposture and the freedom of voice and offcource her drive to learn new things. She involved herself too much in 'porantha veedu' (like most of the females do after they get married) the only difference is she was ahead that she wanted to marry a person who gives her a hand in doing that(mind u she doesn't choose a dumb person like kandamaran/parthiban who would be even more obliging than vandiyatevan) . she believed in Horoscope of her brother 100% that he will go places. Take into fact that chola desam at the stage was badly in need of a shape and good team co-ordination she goes one step ahead leading the good set of males she knew(vandiyatevan/rajaraja and in future rajendra). She doesn't influence her brother since she although dislikes sendan becoming a king accepts her brothers decision. Priority for her here is chola desam.
The rest of the females I think have a bit of sitha bramhamai as kalki says which again influenced by various other factors.
Vanathi- She grew up in diffenent places. She has seen death of her father. She takes kundavai as her true friend. We can say she might have manipulated to some extent but her actions was rather ameture taken into fact that kundavai is very smart lady.
Nandini- She is totally confusing. She can be said to enjoy the fact that she could make all the males a puppet.Her way of punishing males who were either arogant or proud. Other than that she doesn't benefit from her beauty nor manipulation. She has to either marry a oldie or slog in forest living in disguise .
Poongulali- again she is slightly off..taken into fact that she has to live all by herself protecting & defending...She is more practical in understanding that she cannot live in luxury ( a koondu killi)..she is more a nature lover than any one else..She could have influenced rajaraja but think she changes her mind after being deeply hurted by people who claims she trys to captivate a prince..
You know .. I am most fascinated by Kundavai (the historical character.. not the PS character). Think about it this way.. Tamizh Nadu, even today is fairly male dominated and male chauvinistic. Let us assume for an instance that things haven't changed all that much in over a 1000 years (of course people might well claim that a 1000 years ago TN was less male chauvinistic than it is today.. although I wouldn't want to bet on it). In which case the fact that a woman was so heavily involved in her "porantha veedu" is completely amazing.. Given societal norms, would Vandiyathevan have been a laughing stock of the makkaL in general? Kinda like "atho paaru da.. pondatti avanai vittututu inga irukkan".. "avanukku pondattiya vechchu kaappaaththa thuppu illai" etc :)
> > > Nandini- She is totally confusing. She can be said to enjoy the > > fact that she could make all the males a puppet.Her way of punishing > > males who were either arogant or proud. Other than that she doesn't > > benefit from her beauty nor manipulation.
>>>>>>>>She has to either marry a oldie or slog in forest living in disguise .
i thoroughly disagree to that
nanthini with her beauty could have got whatever she wanted.
aditya karikalan was literally grovelling at nandinis feet
even confesses that if she asks him to kill sundara solar and periya pazhuvettaraiyar he might do it
nandini was confused yes. and that confusion cost her a lot of things. if she had ensnared a. karikalan she could have achieved what she wanted an independent pandya land.
this can be attributed typically to the women Mentality..
Women generally are soft and only in rare cases you find women of dominating character..(udane kaal kattai viraloda adharkku next irukkira viral perisaa irundhaa dominating nnu ellaam aarambikkaadheenga.... namma chamudrika lakshanam pathi appurama discuss pannalaam)
Nandini was committed to Pandya Land and at the same time she was also a lil hesitant in the way she behaves.. there were two conflicting personalities inside nandini( no split personalities!!)
Her conscience would have been pricking her when she treated men like the way she treated and used them for her purpose.. but there was a larger goal that needs to be achieved from her side.. i.e. independant Pandya Land and as all of us know if there is one race that keeps resurfacing again and again in the entire TN's history it is the Pandya's.
Inspite of being defeated time and again, these people never laid to rest their ambition of being independent kings....
May be andha oru feeling nandinikkum odirukkum which influenced her behavious towards men in achieving the objective of Independant Pandya land..
Yes.. she could have easily influenced AK for an independent Pandya Land.. but whether people like that "pazhaiyaarai Penn Puli" would have allowed that to happen is a question..
added to that is the presence of the President of "sothu katchi".. kundavai enna solluvaannu kaathukinu kidandha aalu namma vandhiyadevan.. kitta thatta murugan maadhiri.. in terms of jollu...
adhu maadhiri dhaan vandhiaydevanum..... semma jollu... rendu per kaiyyilum vel dhaan ...
may be vandhiyadevan's oor might have influenced his behaviour... North arcot district la dhaan Vallimalai iruku.. so andha oor saami pathi kelvi pattu.. avanum jollanaa aaittaan.....
may be if AK went to the extent of giving pandya land or rechristening himself as Adhiya karikaala pandiyan... oru kundhavai out of her love for the family wud have asked Vandhiaydevan to counter AK with the help of Arulmozhi and in the process AK cud have been murdered....
aiyo! aiyo! adikkaraanagley.. vandhiyadevan AK vai kolai pannuvaannu sonnadhukkaaga adikkaraangaley...
I agree..I pity her ..Life on the whole was unfair to her.....to be bought up as a adopted child is sad..but to be unsure of who the father is caused her the major agony/confusion... she addresses pandiyan as "anbey" in one instance where we understand that she was sure that pandiyan was not her father...
.even while her mother was alive she had no matertal bondings with her...
>>even confesses that if she asks him to kill sundara solar and >>periya >>pazhuvettaraiyar he might do it
She doesn't want any violence ..when Ak tell her this she sarcastically says he can kill sundaracholar but cannot make her a Rani..All she needs is a social status which life has refused all along from birth.....
It is no big shock if pandiyan was her father..she would have still married AK...there should be a reason for her avoiding AK?..Does she truly loved AK? or was it a mere infactuation(as they were very young) seeing him supportive when kundavai was teasing her . ...Did she mistook pandiyan's fatherly affection to be a love?...or did she have any psychological problems.?...confusing..
Yes. I agree that tamil society was occupied by the male cahvinists once. Being a Girl, it is apprecitiable that Kundavan had a committment to be in Chola Desam only which was very rare decision. In that context that's ok. But, Kuzhali can drive the boat alone, she could guide Vanthiyathevan,... i feel, if we ask "is there any Bharthai kanda Puthumai pen in Ps?, i would say Kuzhali rather than Kunthavai.
hi all, it is an amazing yahoogroups i seem to have been invited to.. for someone who read portions of PS as a child with wide eyes and lurking fear of what would follow and someone who started to subsribe to kalki when they serialised this great epic and motivated my wife to cut, arrange and bind the entire serialisation.. so that the pictures wud add to the allure of reading it again... such a discussion on PS can only be described as the equivalent of *thaen vanthu payidhu kadhinile*.. my interest to locate PS on the net was sparked by my son who bought the first volume of PS (in english..sadly) from amazon.com.. and wrote saying he could not put it down.. i went into the net and to my great pleasure found many sites and even the entire tamil rendering.. but alas.. not any english version.. understandable though..does anyone know any english version?
to have written a story on raja raja chozhan, but subtly create vandhiyadevan as the hero was a masterstroke..like wise the wily nandini and compassionate kundavai could not stand in front of the characterisation of poonkuzhali.. entirely my opinion.. i am truly happy to see such interest and hope to participate as well as i can.. ravichandran