Kalki Krishnamurthy
his life and times

Gowri Ramnarayan

A translation of the biography in Tamil

PONNIYIN PUDALVAR

By ‘Sunda’ MRM Sundaram

Note on the Title:

Ponniyin Pudalvar, (the son of Ponni), is a reminder that Kalki was born in the region nurtured by the river Ponni, another name for the Kaveri, where the Imperial Chola monarch Rajaraja I was known as Ponniyin Selvan (Ponni’s beloved son), the name of Kalki’s spectacular cult novel.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are extremely grateful to all the people who have unhesitatingly provided us encouragement and both help as well as practical support. A project like this takes a lot of work, planning and resources. We started this work in a fit of unalloyed enthusiasm and the palpable interest and energy form others has helped immeasurably. We may not name you all here but each of you knows who you are. Ruby Lau for her forceful insistence that Sunda’s biography of Kalki Krishnamurthy should be translated and all her help and trust in our ability to get this done. K Rajendran for recommending the book to Rukmini and for getting Sunda to write the original Biography – Ponniyin Pudalvar – and first serializing it in Kalki Magazine. Lakshmi Natarajan and Seetha Ravi for their help, support and suggestions. Sikkil Gurucharan, J A Jayanth, L Ramakrishna, PC Ramakrishna, and all the artists and musicians who have offered their help and agreed to participate in this project and the events to reintroduce Kalki Krishnamurthy his life and times to a new generation. To everyone has helped us promote news of this project and to each and everyone of you who has preordered one or more copies of the book which is to be ready in late February 2022 we express our thanks. We hope the book will be a solid addition to your library and that it will be enjoyed by your children and grandchildren.

With all our gratitude

Rukmini Ramachandran | Gowri Ramnarayan | Shankar Ramachandran

We would like to thank the following people for their support of this translation project.

  • Revathi and Ramachandran Subramanian, San Diego California

  • Lakshmi and Sreekanth Kallur, Dublin Ohio

  • Christine Laubin, Hertfordshire UK

  • Shankar Ramachandran, Columbus Ohio

  • K Rajendran, Chennai, India

  • Seetha Ravi, Chennai, India

  • T Madhusudan, Chennai, India

  • Ramalingam Raja, Texas, USA

  • Usha Padmanabhan, Illinois, USA

  • Shobhana & PN Shrikanth, Texas, USA