Reading Reflections (Jan 8, 2018)

So have managed to get to 90 pages on Parthiban Kanavu. The author did not show us the battle and directly took us to its aftermath. He creates a dramatic effect describing corpses and blood. There is a Shaivite stage looking around in the corpses and at the same time an elephant is looking around - the elephant of Parthiban. The elephant's grief wrings the heart  of the reader and manages to get the reader's full sympathy for Parthiban. The sage finds Parthiban and get his final words on his deathbed. He promises to do his best to see to it that Pathiban's dream of Vikraman becoming an independent Chola king. Before he dies the sage removes his wig and fake beard to the dying Parthiban. Paarthiban is surprised to learn his identity. But the same is not revealed to the readers.

Then we are taken 6 years into the future and we are shown a  horse rider visit a temple and change to his ascetic disguise and visit the boatman Ponnan's house. It becomes clear he is on very good terms with young Price Vikraman and his mother. Vikraman informs the king that he is all ready to lead a rebellion to raise the Chola flag again. The sage asks him who is helping him and he says his uncle Marappa Bhoopathy, who had pretended to be unwell and avoided Parthiban's disastrous battle. He claims his uncle has reformed and is raising an army for him.

We are then taken to a different scene where king Narasimha Varman is visiting Mahabalipuram with his daughter Kundavi. We learn the place is named after Narasimha Varman. Mamalla is the name given to Narasimha varman because he defeated the best wrestlers. We are told all this through conversations with father and daughter. We also get to know king's eldest son is on a campaign to Sri Lanka. King says it was always his unfulfilled desire to carry out sea campaigns and so he has happy to send his son on the same. Only his daughter he could no send she being a woman and his last son had no interest in the same. We have lively conversation between father and daughter during which lot of interesting information is revealed. 

The chapter ends with King receiving message about Vikraman's rebellion and king being aware of it without even reading the message.