Dear Venkat, I was reading your incredible novel on my journey back home from India. I did not even realize how time passed and did not even have time to feel home sick!!
I am yet to complete and will share more thoughts on completion, but thank you for the gift of story, that continues to heal and cure and help so many of us. You truly have it!!
Dear Venkat, I finished the book yesterday...thank you..I felt like I had read a very well written historical novel after a very long time. Your writing has shades of Kalki but is very much your own which I truly appreciate.
What I very much liked was the down to earth, unaffected nature of characters,Swati seemed a tad more human than Sivakami to me, although I regard Sivakami as one of Kalki's best characters. Especially where she realizes that she is not Aandal and Natesan is not going to come down to wed her...full marks!! It is also very interesting that she gets both her lover and Natesan together, very positive and was quite releived, must admit!! Nandan's transition from the playboy thief into realizing his calling is also equally remarkable :))
Only grouse Venkat, perhaps you might have developed some more characters other than Swati and Nandan. Natesan is a character in HIS own right and so is the elderly Dikshitar but otherwise. But again for a small and fast paced historical novel perhaps that is enough.