nandhini's father :: Lateral thinking
  • Nandhini is such a hostile and unreliable witness. She will never tell
    the truth and will only twist facts to suit her. Kalki has understood
    Nandhini very well and he did not have a 'fall', big or small,
    definitely.
    Sampath
  • > Nandhini is such a hostile and unreliable witness. She will never tell
    > the truth and will only twist facts to suit her. Kalki has understood
    > Nandhini very well and he did not have a 'fall', big or small,
    > definitely.


    of course kalki should have understood nandini well. she was his star creation.

    but still ....

    kalki in his wish to enthrall readers every week sought to sensationalise several issues.
    suspense, thigil, etc

    nandini contradicts herself in several places.
    words and actions.
    venketesh




    > Sampath
    >
    > --- In [email protected], "Sivapathasekaran"
  • Yes but i dont regard that as the author's primary mistake (there are lot of peopel in the real world who contradict themselves!!). Here orgins are goofy if i might say, while writing a 'thodar' the author started one way and then introduced twists that could not come together.

    Nandini and VD are among the more believable rounded characters of PS regardless.
  • I would agree that with Sundara Chozhar. How his love for Mandakini changes
    to hatred during the last few days of his life.
    That was a good study of human psychology. But Nadhini contracting herself,
    calling Veerapandiyan 'Anbe' when other circumstances lead to the fact that
    he was her father, this is definitely a slip.

    But ofcourse this is a very small slip as you said since he was writing a
    thodar.
    On the brighter side, but for this slip we would not have such a nice
    discussion happening here :)
    (which seem to happen whenever one of our members finish reading PS for the
    first time ;) )

    So either way Kalki rocks :)
  • > Nandini and VD are among the more believable rounded characters of PS regardless.

    Hi maloo

    i have always thought so.
    there was a degree of artificialness or too much stress on one trait of the charecter for the others.

    the women were too goody goody ...

    vanthiyathevan falling for every girl he met( all except manimekalai who truly loved him)

    he proposes to pungkuzhali, falls for nandini and is enamoured by kunthavai in the space of a few days.

    nandini too is shown to have a split personality torn between the power wealth she posseses and the goal of her life.


    venketesh










    >
  • > I would agree that with Sundara Chozhar. How his love for Mandakini changes
    > to hatred during the last few days of his life.

    its very common isnt it. we often end up hating those we have loved too much.

    kalki follows it in many relationships

    vanthiyathevan- kandamaran
    karikalan nandini
    paluvettaraiyar nandini
    sundara solan mandakini


    venketesh



    > That was a good study of human psychology. But Nadhini contracting herself,
    > calling Veerapandiyan 'Anbe' when other circumstances lead to the fact that
    > he was her father, this is definitely a slip.
    >
    > But ofcourse this is a very small slip as you said since he was writing a
    > thodar.
    > On the brighter side, but for this slip we would not have such a nice
    > discussion happening here :)
    > (which seem to happen whenever one of our members finish reading PS for the
    > first time ;) )
    >
    > So either way Kalki rocks :)
    >
    > cheers
    > Swaroop
    >
    >
    >
  • Yes Venkat really there is no shortage of goody goody women at all especially in historical novels. If we think some of kalki's women (liek the much hated Vaanathi) was like that then one has to read Akilan and Sandilyan. All women are beautiful in standard ways, karpukkarasigal, and repeated standard lines.athaan this that..sometimes aiyoooo endru kathidalam..like you if you see old tamil movies you can say about 2 minutes ahead that the heroine female is going to burst into tears with some pure tamil dialogue.

    Kalki's women were much more flesh and blood than that. Kundavi you can make out she is somewhat bossy by nature, even the senior Sembian madhevi you get a sense of what a controlling mom she was judging by the way pazhaiya madhurantakan just wants to break out and live his ambitions. Nandini and Poonguzhali definitely very human characters, far from perfect, one need not say more.

    We can forgive his lapses given the humanness in the characters. But undoubtedly they were lapses. The British court ruled in favor of Conan Doyle killing Sherlock holmes to finish his story but also did not fail to mention that every author is indebted to his readers who keep his writing alive. If anyone does not say PS ending left them disappointed/strangely lost/'what is this' type of a feeling that is a total lie. For that we have to hold the author accountable as much as we love him dearly.

    Malathi
  • Some more speculation:

    Nandini had quite a lot of interaction with the old Madhurantakan.
    During all this time, she didn't reveal his parentage to him. Also,
    she actively conspired against him, all the way to the end. It was
    only Karuthiruman who ended up "rescuing" Madhurantakan from being an
    illegitimate Chola prince to being the heir to the Pandya throne. This
    gives me the impression that either a) she didn't know of it herself -
    "it" could be either knowledge of her own parentage, or the fact that
    Madhurantakan was her twin, or b) she didn't care - she wanted to rule
    through her son.

    This again raises another question: Why shouldn't she try taking
    Madhurantakan as another Pandya prince under her thumb, the way
    Kundavai had both Karikalan and RRC (also RJC actually)? If one gets
    killed / gets deposed / doesn't want the throne or whatever, she still
    has the other to dominate, if that were her goal.

    Therefore, either she didn't know, or wanted only her son to come to
    the Pandya throne, and not even her twin.

    If she didn't know, maybe she only found out after Karuthiruman and
    Pazhaiya Madurantakan landed up in the Abatudaivigal camp, and only
    then was she able to put the pieces together...

    What she says to either VD or AK are probably 50% karpanai - she's
    trying to manipulate them right upto the end, and she'd say anything
    to anyone else, too. What she says to Pazhuvetaraiyar when they are in
    the cave is a little more believable, because she has nothing to gain
    by manipulating him at that point.

    All in all, Nandini probably didn't know the whole truth within the
    time period of the novel. Which is probably why Kalki puts in that
    enigmatic sentence in the ending note, to the effect that she tells
    RRC "the truth about who killed Aditya Karikalan, and about her
    parentage".

    Hope this doesn't add to the existing confusion... :-)

    Shash

    On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 5:17 PM, S
  • >
    > Hope this doesn't add to the existing confusion... :-)
    >
    > Shash
    >

    of course it does, but doesnt creativity rise from chaos


    nandini was risking her high position by stealing gold from treasury to fund the pandyas.

    the apath thuthaival obeyed her words and gave some relative immunity to vanthiyathevan'

    she was passionate about the pandya sword.

    there are many more instances where nandin is shown to know her lineage.

    venketesh
  • "she was passionate about the pandya sword."

    dear venkat

    Whats with Kalki's obsession with the sword. Even in Parthiban Kanavu, he
    had the jewelled sword of the Cholas and the tirukural - which was kept in
    the box for safe keeping.
  • Dear Shaswanth
    Its an interesting line of thought.....I think Kalki explains in more than one place that Nandhini possible was chaste .....

    The Child she clearly tells Vandhiyadevan is not hers..'' engeo pidithu vantha kulandaiyai Veera pandiayn magan enkirargal...'' she is shown as the foster mother....

    She pieces the puzzle only before she dissapears with VD explaining about Mandakini...Her interactions with Madhuranthagan were merely as a pawn to cause chaos in the system and not as a sibling...

    It also raises another interesting question....Mandakinis children..a woman who has so much love for Sundara how did she beget childran from some one else?

    Was she amnesic after her fall which was taken advantage by the Pandya king or Kauthirumaan???

    Or was she that pretty and two monarchs lost them to her???

    If so when did she snap out of it...the agony of childbirth?? If so did she understand she has born the children to another man that is not her beloved???

    Its a really convoluted food for thought

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