Siege of Madurai - Fictionalising History, R. Venketesh, 7th Mar 2015

தமிழ்ப் பாரம்பரியம்
(Tamil Heritage Trust)
presents
Siege of Madurai - Fictionalising History
by 
R. Venketesh
at 5.30pm on Saturday, March 7th, 2014
at Vinoba Hall, Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya, T Nagar.

About the Topic:
A turning point in the history of Tamil Nadu is Malik Kafur's invasion of Madurai in the fourteenth century. Pandya empire was in the throes of internal war between brothers Veera Pandiyan and Sundara Pandian. Malik Kafur, a general of Delhi Sultan Allauddin Kilji was on an expedition, defeating many kingdoms and collecting ransom. Sundara Pandiyan invited Malik Kafur to attack Madurai in the hope that Veera Pandian will be defeated and he in turn could become the ruler of Madurai after the war.
However, the resultant war marked the end of the power of Pandya empire and subsequently resulted in the establishment of Islamic rule in Madurai for a significant period. 
Only limited details about the episode are known. R. Venketesh has gone about building a highly acclaimed and best selling fiction around this titled "Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai", published by Hachette.
Venketesh will talk about how he fictionalised this episode of history and the challenges involved in doing the same.

About the Speaker:
Venketesh  hails from the zamindari family of Devakottai whose thirupanis at Rameshwaram and Kalayar koil over the last two centuries are well appreciated.
Venketesh is a bilingual writer. He has three tamil novels to his credit. Two of them 'Kaviri Maindan' (காவிரி மைந்தன்) and 'Kanji Tharagai' (காஞ்சித் தாரகை) are sequels to Amarar Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan and Sivagamiyin Sabatham respectively.
Venketesh is one of the founding members of the 'Ponniyin Selvan Varalatru Peravai', a large body of Kalki enthusiasts.
He also runs a cultural mapping project of the Cooum and with a band of volunteers is recording all buildings and events of historical value on the sides of the 70 km long Cooum river. The Motto of the project is, “if we know it better, we perhaps will treat it better”.

RSVP:
S. Swaminathan - sswami99@gmail.com; 2467 1501
Badri Seshadri - Kizhakku-p-padippakam - badri@nhm.in; 98840-66566
A. Annamalai: Gandhi Study Centre - gandhicentre@gmail.com;
S. Kannan - musickannan@gmail.com; 98414-47974
R. Gopu - writergopu@yahoo.com, 98417-24641
T. Sivasubramanian - siva.durasoft@gmail.com, 98842-94494