Narayanan - Ponniyin Selvan All Volumes

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Ponniyin Selvan

All Volumes

Author - Kalki

Translated by - C.V.Karthik Narayanan

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Table of Contents

Kalki R.Krishnamurthy (1899-1954)

The project

T hree years ago when Karthik Narayanan suggested we publish Ponniyin Selvan in translation in time for the centenary, I thought to myself: five hundred chapters ... 2400 pages? The equivalent of at least ten of the short novels I was editing for the Modern Indian Novels project of translations.

What's it about? I asked and without once breaking stride or fumbling for expression KN narrated the story of Ponniyin Selvan and as he did, I was drawn, like so many thousands before me, to the magic and drama of Kalki, one of the greatest story-tellers of our time.

Who will translate such a work? I mused.

I will, said Karthik with perfect confidence. That was the first step. Then I turned to other practicalities and anything that looked like a mountainous difficulty simply powdered before us.

To begin with, the funding. Apart from the funds already available for the 55 Indian novels from eleven languages, the MR AR Educational Society agreed to sponsor the Kalki translation as well. Indeed it has been the enormous good fortune of our project that the founding philosophy of its sponsors is the forging of links (at various levels) for ideological and practical social progress.

With the assurance of their support, work on the project began. There followed three years of collaboration on what I call the Gone with the Wind of Tamil Nadu. Karthik introduced me to Kalki and I can truthfully say that I spent so many happy hours following the fortunes of Vandiyathevan (so like D'Artagnan) that I wondered what Id do when the work was over.

A year later our celebrated illustrator joined the team and we had endless discussions about what he had to leave Out! Once it was known that the translation was underway not a day went by without a call from a stranger or an enquiry from an acquaintance, When will it be ready? Excerpts published in the Literary Review of The Hindu spread the news even further and bookshops began to ask when they might place orders.

Karthik freely handed over his scripts for re workings and revisions and never once hesitated to take a decision when we came unstuck, always and instinctively keeping in Kalkis shadow. A tireless re-writer of his own work it was he who said that, following the author, (and though it would sound odd to readers who did not know Tamil) we should use variations of the same name to indicate the attitude and relationship of the speaker to the person referred to. Hence for example, the different presentations of the same name Chozhar and Chozhan, Aditha Karikalar and Aditha Karikalan, in both cases the first variant being the respectful form of address.

Before I saw the first lot of chapters I thought to myself: surely we can abridge some of it...? ... used as I was to the style of serialised novels with the novelist recapping situations and plots and even repeating him/herself as the novel progressed. But to my amazement I found that not a single line this great novelist wrote could be taken out because a hundred pages later (in Kalkis life a few weeks) that line would hook neatly into some conversation or incident. Perhaps the most memorable of such lines (not that I tried to take this out!) is Sendhan Amudhans She who gave birth to me is a great soul but an unfortunate woman. (ch 23). Two lines later he explains why he thinks she is unfortunate, but readers who know the story will know what a loaded sentence this is because in it lies the secret of Sendhan Amudhan's origin and future.

There were so many small incidents and coincidences connected with the smooth progress of the work that my curiosity about the original grew. When did the first chapter first appear in print? Six months before I was born and in the same year that Ilango our illustrator was! A few months before our book went to Press a highly motivated local theatre group The Magic Lantern staged a dramatized version of Ponniyin Selvan. Had they known, when they chose the play that the centenary was two years away? No. They had just thought that the ecstasy of sacrifice that lay at the heart of the novel was a fine note on which to close the twentieth century. Karthik, Ilango and I talked about very little else. I think Kalki has decided that the time has come, said Ilango. And so it had.

The First Floods is the first in a sequence of five parts that together make up the story of Ponniyin Selvan. I am indebted to many people who must be named because without their combined encouragement and practical help this enterprise wouldnt have had the unfettered passage to Press that it has enjoyed.

November 1999

MINI KRISHNAN

The translator

A n engineer by profession, Karthik Narayanan (1938) was born in Calcutta and had his early education in Tuticorin. He is an industrialist and heads companies that manufacture automobile components. He has occupied a number of important positions like the President of the Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, President of the Automobile Research Association of India, Chairman of the Southern Region of the Association of Indian Engineering Industry, Member of the Senate of the Annamalai University.

Steeped in South Indian history, its arts and culture, KN is an avid reader of all the novels Kalki wrote, and is an accomplished player o of the percussion instrument the mridangam. KN is also an enthusiastic traveller, trekking in Himalayas being a favourite hobby.

Married to Uma who is an accomplished translator of French and Tamil books and Managing Trustee of the SOS Children's Villages of India-Chatnath Homes and the Karna Prayag Trust, KN has a son Ramgopal, daughter Gayathri and a granddaughter Niveditha.

The translators note

I t is now widely acknowledged, that Kalki was the first Tamil writer who used the ancient history of famous Tamil dynasties and the region as the background of attractive stories. Ponniyin Selvan