When I hunted to read Sandilyan's books, my dad recommended me to embark on with ‘Kadal pura’ and gave me a huge novel with 3 parts. Hate his guts! He knew that I always read books at a stretch and the size never counts. That was a challenge and I finished the novel within a day. (Thank god!).
The first part was so bizarre, and we have new characters approaching up till the last few chapters. Also the author’s style of giving some twist and turns in the end of every chapter keeps the reader going, may be for first few chapters but as pages turn it fails.
Second chapter was intense on drawing up the hero’s (‘elaya pallavan’) diplomacy, smartness, intelligence etc.. This totally naysay with the first part of the novel, where another character called ‘abhanayan’ was emphasized to be much smarter than the hero. But, it is ‘elaya pallavan’ who turns out to be, “hero-who-saves-the day” story in the second part.
Third part is kind of repetitive like the previous one. The author admiration for the hero and his deeds are anachronistically. Romancing part of the hero is not very subtle; the characterization of his lady loves (yeah..He has 2!) are the pits.
Finally, when it come to imagination, thumbs up for Sandilyan. The very description of the ship (Kadal pura) and the geographical arenas is too good. But I couldn’t accept the invincible hero. It was just a ‘too much’.
If you want to read Kadal pura, go for it, if that’s your first expedition with Tamil novels or with Sandilyan. If you have already read Kalki and others, then don’t.
Ground line: Sandilyan wrote great stuff about chola dynasty. Period.
good
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