Nandini Vijayaraghavan was so moved by Kalki’s historical novel Sivakamiyin Sabadham that she began writing to vent her feelings. “My friends told me to post my writing and then the readers in my blog asked me to publish it. I didn’t plan on writing my book; my readers took me through the process,” said Nandini who was in the city for a reading from her English translation of the Tamil classic.
Nandini took four years to translate 207 chapters, spending her weekends writing to bring out a four volume translation. Set in 7 century South India, the book revolves around the power struggle between the Pallava king Mahendra Varman and the Chalukya king Pulakesi set against the backdrop of the love story of the Pallava prince Narasimha Varman and the danseuse Sivakami.
“It was a period when Jainism was waning in its importance in the region against the increasing clout of the Shaivaites and the Vaishnavites. The Vatapi war was a significant event in South Indian history. Kalki blends actual characters with fictional stories.”
Through the book, Nandini, a debut author, hopes to bring regional Indian literature to a wider audience.
“We simply need to pitch it to a wider audience. My European readers appreciated the same things about the book that familiar readers did. So we have a market, we just need to take our literature to them in a palatable way,” she explained. “Even if a few non-Tamil readers can pick up the book and if it can incentivise Tamil readers to read the original, my objective is served.”
