*Major spoilers ahead
Even as a seventy-year wait to see Ponniyin Selvan on screen has come to an end, PS 2, the second part of Mani Ratnam’s adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s novel, has led to a lot of discussions on the creative liberties taken with it. Mani Ratnam co-wrote the two-part film with Elango Kumaravel and Jeyamohan, and as was only to be expected, the team has done away with several episodes and characters from the novel to condense the vast material into two films.
While many fans of Ponniyin Selvan have made their peace with the film adaptation, others are upset that some of the most important connections and twists in the novel were dropped.
The conclusion of the succession battle in the Chola kingdom, especially, came as a shocker. In the novel and in the film, it is Madhurantakan who is crowned the king, and in real-life history too, Sundara Chola was succeeded by his cousin Madhurantakan (also known as Uttama Chola) and not his sons. But there is a crucial difference between Kalki’s novel and Mani Ratnam’s film – in the former, the Madhurantakan who is crowned isn’t the same person who went against Sundara Chola and his children in the succession battle. There is a ‘new’ Madhurantakan who is identified as the true heir to the throne. In the film version, this plot thread is completely obliterated.
Here’s a look at some of the crucial differences between the novel and the PS films.
Madhurantakan is the son of King Gandaraditya and Queen Sembiyan Madevi. This makes him Sundara Chola’s cousin since Sundara Chola’s father Arinjaya and Gandaraditya are brothers. However, Madhurantakan is very young when Gandaraditya dies and the throne passes on to Arinjaya instead of him. After Arinjaya, his son Sundara Chola becomes the king.
But, Kalki later reveals that the man named Madhurantakan wasn’t actually born to the royal couple. Sembiyan Madevi gives birth to a stillborn baby. Not wanting to disappoint her husband, she agrees with Prime Minister Aniruddha Brahmarayar’s suggestion that they substitute the stillborn child with another baby.
There is a woman named Mandakini Devi (also called Oomai Arasi/Oomai Rani because she cannot speak or hear) who gives birth to a pair of twins around the same time that Sembiyan Madevi’s baby is born, and Brahmarayar approaches her to make the switch. The woman resists Brahmarayar’s suggestion at first but later abandons the babies. The boy is brought up as prince Madhurantakan while the girl, Nandini, is brought up in a priestly family. This makes Madhurantakan and the novel’s chief antagonist, Nandini, siblings.
It is only later that Sembiyan Madevi realises that the baby born to her wasn’t actually dead. But by then, it is too late to switch the children again.
Madhurantakan (Rahman) is presented as the biological son of Gandaraditya and Sembiyan Madevi, and he isn’t related to Nandini or Mandakini Devi (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan).
Sendhan Amudhan is a flower seller who grows up as boatwoman Poonkuzhali’s cousin. He is the biological son of Sembiyan Madevi and Gandaraditya who was switched at birth. Though he comes to know the truth later, he doesn’t stake his claim for the throne and keeps the secret.
Prince Arulmozhi Varman decides that Sendhan deserves the throne more than anyone else. He is presented as the ‘new’ Madhurantakan and crowned – and since the people of the kingdom have rarely seen the ‘old’ Madhurantakan who was a devout Shaivite and stayed away from the workings of the kingdom, only a few know about the change. Sendhan Amudhan marries Poonkuzhali and her dream of becoming the queen is fulfilled.
Sendhan Amudhan (Ashwin Kakumanu) remains a flower seller. Madhurantakan deeply regrets going against the Chola family, and recognising that he has a right to the throne, Arulmozhi crowns him as the king. Poonkuzhali (Aishwarya Lekshmi) does not become the queen though she has a casual exchange with Sendhan in which she expresses this desire.
There is a certainly an incest angle to Nandini’s relationship with Pandya king Veerapandyan. Nandini grows up with the royal Chola children without knowing who her biological parents are. When it becomes evident that prince Aditha Karikalan is attracted to her, the Chola family sends her away and she becomes embittered. Later, when Karikalan hunts down Veerapandyan, the arch-enemy of the Cholas, he finds Nandini taking care of him. She tells Karikalan that Veerapandyan is her lover and that he has promised to marry her. She begs Karikalan not to kill him but that only infuriates the prince more and he beheads Veerapandyan.
Later, it is revealed that there is a strong possibility that Veerapandyan was, in fact, Nandini’s father (which would also make him Madhurantakan’s father) and that she may not have known this until after he died. There is also another character, Karuthiruman, known as a ‘madman’ in the dungeon, who claims that he’s Nandini’s real father. It was Karuthiruman who rescued Mandakini Devi and Veerapandyan from the sea many years ago – the former had tried to kill herself while the latter was fleeing the Cholas.
Nandini holds her cards close to her chest and is often manipulative. It is possible to argue that Veerapandyan wasn’t actually her lover and that she had said it only to provoke Karikalan. But then, there is a chapter where she hallucinates that she’s seeing Veerapandyan’s head and she addresses him as “My beloved! My king!”
The boy Nandini crowns, calls her ‘Amma’. But in this chapter, she says that it was the Pandyas who brought the boy and claimed that he was Veerapandyan’s son.
It is Aditha Karikalan (Vikram) who assumes that Veerapandyan (Nasser) is Nandini’s lover when he sees the two of them together in the cave (the memorable interval block from Ponniyin Selvan 1). The second film conclusively positions Veerapandyan as Nandini’s father and nothing else. There is no suggestion that he was also her lover. The boy who is crowned is presented as Nandini’s half-brother.
In the chapter following Karikalan’s death, Kalki writes that the Thiruvalangadu copper plates from the Chola era describe the incident in these words: “Adithan met his end because of his desire to see the Heavens. The world was engulfed in the darkness of the last of the yugams, the Kaliyugam.” It’s possible to interpret these lines as a euphemism for suicide. In history, of course, there was no Nandini and there is no record of an epic love story between Karikalan and a woman who may have been of Pandya origin. But perhaps the words triggered an idea in an imaginative writer’s mind.
The death of Karikalan has been the subject of much debate and discussion for decades. It’s perhaps why Kalki engineered the ‘old Madhurantakan’ and ‘new Madhurantakan’ plot thread. Initially, it was speculated that Madhurantakan had a hand in killing Aditha Karikalan and becoming the king. It was suggested that the royal murder was not investigated in Madhurantakan’s time and that it was only after Arulmozhi became the king 14 years later that he punished the perpetrators – three men named Ravidasan, Soman and Parameswaran. But later readings of Chola era inscriptions exonerated Madhurantakan of being involved in Karikalan’s murder.
In the novel, several people have the opportunity to kill Karikalan, including Nandini, the Pandyas, Vandiyathevan, Manimekalai (who isn’t in the film at all), Kanda Maran, and Periya Pazhuvettarayar. It’s also possible that Karikalan chose to end his misery by killing himself or that it had happened accidentally. It’s not entirely clear who actually plunged the sword into him.
There are only two possibilities – Nandini stabbed Karikalan or Karikalan stabbed himself. Either way, it’s a choice that Karikalan makes because he needs to free himself of the past and atone for Veerapandyan’s murder.
Nandini’s end in the novel is as mysterious as her origin. After Karikalan’s death, Nandini realises that the mother she had yearned to know so much (Mandakini), died because of the path of vengeance that Nandini had chosen. Nandini gets on a horse and disappears, never to be seen again. Before leaving, she falls at her husband Periya Pazhuvettarayar’s feet, as if asking for forgiveness. Periya Pazhuvettarayar later takes his own life, tormented by guilt and the dishonour he has brought to his clan by betraying the Cholas.
Nandini drowns herself, racked by guilt after she realises that Veerapandyan was her father but that he had hidden the truth from her. It is suggested that he had forced himself on her mother. It disgusts her that she had sought to avenge the death of such a man. She also feels guilty about her role in Karikalan’s death, and for manipulating Periya Pazhuvettarayar (Sarathkumar). The latter does not die in the film.
Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture, and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015.