Indian's lure with the kings and queens...

Though the epic fantasy genre has been around for a long time in the Indian film-making scene, Rajamouli's Bahubali broke previous records in this genre and even set a new record to be scaled around the globe. Raising the bar, the South Indians, particularly, the Telugu film industry spun another hit 'RRR'. 

What is noticeable is the audience's undying lure with the kings and queens and the court intrigues. India is the land of storytellers. Classical epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata have been staged, televised and animated multiple times for the audience. Furthermore, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey have also been adapted. 

But, what is different this time? 

We are talking about Ponniyin Selvan. Mani Ratnam's period drama had been in the making for a long time. Finally, the trailer dropped last week leaving the audience in awe. Colossal set designs, radiant and glamorous take us to the yore. 

Based on Kalki Krishnamurthy's eponymous Tamil language epic novel, the film depicts the majestic Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola I (947CE-1014CE). 

It is different because it hasn't been prescribed in the syllabus of top colleges offering courses under Humanities and Social Sciences. We come across the mention of classical epics but not work, especially regional; a work not from a Hindi-speaking belt written not even a hundred years ago. It's a regional epic piece having lesser reader share. Perhaps, the movie would compensate for the writer's anonymity to a greater extent. 

The author

Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy(1899-1954) was an Indian writer and journalist known by his pen-name Kalki. He also founded the magazine Kalki with T. Sadasivam(The husband of famous Carnatic classical singer M.S Subbulakshmi). 

An Indian independence activist, he died of tuberculosis at 55.