Although all the 5 love u had mentioned are great I would rate Mandhaagini's love as the greatest.
1.Kundavai might have preferred VD over others precisely for the reason that he was a 'nAdOdi" so that she can be in Chozha nAdu and "aatti-padaiththufy the country"
2.vAnathy's decision was mainly to silence the people who were telling that she is after Arulmozhi to become the pattamagishi.
3.Poonkuzhali dint expect nething from Arulmozhi but when u compare her with Mandagini who even after being "vanjithufied" by Sundarachozhar gave her life to save him and saved his son for quiete a few times.
4.Manimekalai will get the second place in my rating...she was ready to give her life for VD but I doubt whether she wud have done the same thing had VD cheated her.
Good that the discussion has been restarted after a little long break and also with an interesting topic!!!!
I presumed that Kundavai's love towards VD is merely a selfish sort of.. While reading I felt all through the novel she has been somehow dominating and selfish.
Poonguzhali's towards Arulmozhi: I didn't feel like poonguzhali really loved him. I felt it is some sort of likings when u see/know a goodie goodie guy..
Nandhini's towards karikalan: We can say this also a selfish love. When she knows that she won't be able to get him, she dint care abt his feelings..Some sort of "You are not going to be mine, then why should I care about!!!!"
Vanadhi's towards Arulmozhi and Manimekalai's towards VD: Oru mathiri saathvigamana amaidhiyana anbu..
Generally positions and throne and all won't matter much if u r loved and going to be together with your beloved ones. Here if vanadhi has been given pattamagishi or not, it wudn't impact much since anyway she is going to be with Arulmozhi and I thought that she has sacrificed but not much as compared to Mandhahini and Manimegalai.
Yeah.. I do agree with Ram that Mandhahini's is selfless and great. But still eventhough she hadn't been living with Sundara Chola throughout her lifetime atleast she had been with him for somedays, loved him and been loved by him. For that love, she cud have sacrificed and saved Sudara and his son.
But in case of Manimegalai, she has been really selfless to sacrifice even her life for VD not knowing for sure whether he loves her or not..
That was interesting..i agree with you..Manthagini and Manimegalai in that order.Manthagini inspite of her being wronged still does everything for her beloved..Kalki really potrays her true love so well...especially in the scenes where she dots around Arun mozhi varman.....
No wonder they immortalised her by making her a Goddess even today there is a Temple for the SingalaNachi Amman in Thanjavur OFF Medical College road which allegedly was built for Mandhakini by Arunmozhi....
Manimegalai had all the sweet innocence and sacrifices everything for her love..well whether manimegalai would have loved Vandhiyadevan inspite of his betrayal...Mm well she knows he didnt love her and used her with his seettalk to get near Karikalan she forgives him and loves him so I m sure She would have done the same...True love always does it.
Nandhini...well did she really love one person atleast truely...that's the question which Kalki leaves us with..but she constantly does keep reminding Karikalan of her love..even before his death..
Kunthavai..the potrayal of her charecter is so high that she never reveals her love or mental urmaoil..Infact in the whole series there would be tears in her eyes only on a few occasions...
Vanathi what starts as an innocent love later becomes mature....she even dares to attain gajendra motcham for Arunmozhi..
Pongulali...well it aws just a sort of Infactuation...crush sort of thing..
The importnat tHing about Kalki is people and their attitute changes from Time to ..I found it hard to beleive as normal when I first read it in sixth standard(and hve read it almost every year during the final exams a great stress releiver) but as I have grown older.. Ive understood Kalkis charectors are mere mortals and they do change their mind and attitutes like all of us.
Kundhaivai's love is more of the kind where she was conscious of what she was giving and what she was getting. But as a princess, she has to be. When taking kundhavai's love for VD we need to consider a lot of things. A princess of a big kingdom, who has been brought up in such a set up, actually, falls in love at first sight, not knowing who this guy is. If you look at the way she responds to people, she actually nurtures and helps the love to grow between the two. Her spontaneity could be because, she wanted to be in Chozha nadu and by falling in love with a vagabond like VD, she needn't have to leave Chozha nadu. She in fact says somewhere in the 4th bagam if I am right in PS that she loves Chozha nadu above anything else in her life. She knows what she wants, what she is capable of giving and for that what she can expect in return. She is pretty clear.
* Vanathi's love for AM
She falls in love with an aanai paagan and not with AM. We have to keep that in mind. She is ready to go to any extreme for her love and she takes a wow that she will not sit on the throne as his patta magishi(pm). As Ram aptly puts it, the wow was to silence people like Poonguzhali, who kept harping that she loves AM to be his pm.
* Manimekalai's love for VD
As for Manimekalai, she is completely lost. She actually falls in love with VD from what her brother tells her about VD. Its like, she loves her brother so much and this friendship between them (VD and her brother) has been instrumental for the love to blossom. In the end too, its because she realizes that all that her brother had projected about VD is wrong that she goes head strong in saving him. She is in a crux situation where she loves this guy but is unable to accept for her brother is giving a conflicting version and then she realizes something else. And in the end, everything goes hay way for this poor girl and she is thrown to pieces. Its fate that plays a very bad trick on her. That has nothing to do with the love she has for VD. If she were to be convinced that VD has done harm to her brother, I doubt she would have acted the way she did. That's not in her character.
* Nandini's love for KK
Did she love anyone at all except herself? She is classic example of leaf who is tossed in the wind and takes up any shape she wants as and when she wants to just satisfy her whims and fancies of that moment. I doubt if she herself knows what she wants. She is not clear. All she wants is power. In the process as a kid, she used KK and then she tries using VD seeing how strong his will is, but in the process somewhere she does fall for VD. But in the end she ends up using this guy too as a scape goat elsewhere. But she did have a lot of respect and reverence for Periya Pazhuvertrayar though again she did use him to exercise power on a lot of people including Ravidasan.
* Mandhakini's love for SC
She fell in love and married a guy who happened to be have lost his way. So all she knew was a sailor who has lost his way. And that's another love at first sight, which happened, when she tried saving this guy from a bear. She is an exceptional person who loses memory of her life for 2 years. Roams around Srilanka as a mad woman, with such a lot of grief and disappointment in life. But her love for one man in her life is predominant above everything else. She lives for SC. She has no life of herself. She keeps roaming around SC and his life and by her extra-ordinary perception saves AM many a time from some peril or the other and in the end, loses her life in the process of saving SC. She is certainly an extra-ordinary character who cant be compared to anyone else in the novel. Not can you compare her love with anyone's for as I said, she did not live her life for herself. Her life was dedicated to SC and she lived her life for him.
* Poonguzhali's love for AM
This is another beautiful love that did not live long. She realized that there was no point in going ahead with something that would never get fulfilled. Instead, she realized that its better to acknowledge the love that Sendhan Amudhan was showering on her. And that was a wise decision both for herself and for AM.
Now if we were to assess whose love was the greatest, we would say it was Mandakini for she gave her life for the man she loved. And she died in the process of saving his life.
But I wish to look at it this way. Think of what a girl can give (she too has plans for her life) and she is deciding things accordingly and handling things accordingly. Here this woman is an individual by herself and is clear in what she wants and what she can give. She is not interested in going about for something that she knows may not bear fruit and waste her time on it. I would say its being more intelligent to make ones own life happy rather than creating unhappiness for you and for your beloved. That way, I would rate Poonguzhali first and Kundhavai second.
I don't know how many of you have read a novel called Fountain Head by Any Rand. In that the protagonist Roark tells to his lover at a particular place, that unless you know the meaning of 'I' in 'I love you' you cannot understand what it actually means to love another person. That way, I feel both Poonguzhali and Kundhavai knew how to say the 'I' well and emphatically.
To love is not to sacrifice. You should know yourself well and both you and your loved one should be happy as an outcome of that love. That way I feel the only sensible women of the novel were Poonguzhali and Kundhavai. And both do not expect anything in return for their love. They are happy and they make their loved ones happy too.
thanks guys I'm really enjoying the different veiws from all of you Well that's the idea of Discussion Forum.
Eswar I know you have mentioned Senthan's Love but sorry Gentlemen this is Lady's Only round We'll deal with the men soon.
Pavithra...yes there is Singalanachiyar Koil in tanjore and the folklore say it was dedicated to a Eela Pen by RajaRaja Cholan...whether Kalki used his imagination...We I do't know But Remember Srilanka had ties with the Pandya kings only traditionall till the advent of Rajaraja chola and it was only in Rajendra Chola's time did they conquer the whole of Srilanka .hence it is odd that Rajaraja would dedicate a temple for a Srilankan women unless there was a significance.
Srividya..I'm really impressed by your analagy....its true Loveis not a matter of just the heart there is an involvement of the head also..
Sridhar, I have been to SingaLachi amman koil...infact stayed in medical college area for 3 yrs...there isn't really nething exciting in that place in IMO...most people there dont even know abt the history....some poeple even say that "Sengamala naachiyaar" maruvi "singaLaachi" aadichunu...dunno which is rite. Ram
Hi Kundhavai's love for VD-it was a 'mature' love.She was greatly impressed by VD.It was his 'character' that made her love him.He had all qualifications she expected like someone who would stay with in Chola empire..But She was not 'just a princess'.She was a very important person who was involved in administration,whose opnions were greatly valued.When VD was imprisoned she could not cry like Manimekalai.She carefully handled the kingdom,the politics,her brother,her father and also her love.Her love was not 'the most important' in her view.Yet she wouldn't have loved anyone else too. So she was first a princess and then a lover.
Poonkullai loved Arulmolli as people of chola kingdom did.It was not true love-she admired him,liked him but was not sure whether she wanted to live in a palace or not.She realised the true love of Senthan AMuthan and reciprocated to it.It was Senthan Amuthan's love that made her love him.So her love becomes a deeper one.
Vanathi's love...she loved Arul Molli varmar and not Rajarajachola(i.e the king).Her love was love at first sight.She would do anything for Arulmozhivarmar.
Nandhini's love for Karikalan...it's not true love.She wanted to be rich,to be a queen and that made her love him.It was clearly a love for purpose.
Mandhahini and her father only lived in that island.Imagine Mandhahini alone in a island meets a handsome stranger who loves her even when he knows she is dumb.So naturally she loved him.Her life was filled with joy when she was with Sundara Chola.So he is the only one she loved forever.Her love had no bounds.It's well expressed in the story.She was a noble character.
brother she started loving VD.She really didn't know much about him.It was her imaginations that made her love him.Even it is her imagination the made her mentally disturbed in the end.So it was a mad love.
Now which is better-a matured love,love at first sight,blind love,love for purpose,or love the extends to generations. Not only Mandhahini, Pooonguzhali & Vanathi would have sacrificed their lives for their love and would have shown kindness to their children.(I think so!)
But there is onething-the love of Nandhini for VD.It is not insisted much.yet it made me think - Nandhini form her childhood wanted power & wealth and was making moves to get that.Yet she lost her heart to VD.Her psoition was critical-she wanted to take revenge,restore Padyas to power,Kill Karikalan--yet she had a love which could never be expressed and which would never be accepted.But I know that there'll be contradictions whether she loved VD or not.
Among all I find love of Kundhavai & Nandhini to VD,because they considered love to be an important part of life-yet a part of life.It is the practical way too.
Regarding changing the title-PS is better.Even there came a 'thodar'in Kalki titled PS which explained the life of Kalki.So kaliki is PS.I welcome discussions on other novels also.