Ponniyin Selvan Kalki

The nicest thing that has happened to me after moving in to my current house in London is - me getting back to library days. Our council library has a very good collection of Tamil books (as there are lots of Indian and Srilankan Tamils in the area). I love this library. I had a chance to read all in my wish list. Best thing was the much talked “Ponniyin Selvan” (all 5 volumes) by Amarar Kalki. I would recommend this strongly to anyone who is interested in Tamil literature. This book is absolutely fantastic. I have become a great fan of Kalki after reading this. I am aiming to read all his other novels as well and have managed “Sivakamiyin Sabatham”, “Parthiban Kanavu” so far.

Given the volume of these books with great quality, the Tamil world is very much indebted to ‘Amarar’ Kalki(Pardon my language as I don’t get an English equivalent word for “Kaviyam” in Tamil. ‘Novel’ would be an insult as this is the term used for all other cheap ones as well). Despite their volumes I always felt why it ended there and it would have been very nice if this had gone to two further volumes. Such was Kalki's writing. I really doubt if there is anything else in the modern Tamil literature that can match these. There are fans all over the world for this book and there is a yahoo group for discussing this book itself.
While I searched for links related to Ponniyin selvan I was really surprised to see that this is now available online. You can read ponniyin selvan online here. I have not gone through this so I dont gurantee the full form or availability. But this is really an bonanza. A BIG thanks to all those who were involved in this. Ponniyin Selvan Online Link