*From To Sathish* - Thread 3 - Page 13

Thank you Nithya for sharing the lovely pics with us.😛

Satish, thank you for writing the story chapters in such quick succession. I am lagging behind a few chapters as I was busy with work, but here is a quick review from my side:

As far as the story goes, I did enjoy reading about Azhagan's adventures in the forest and the words of advice given to him by the wise old man. Very meaningful words were written here. I wish Avini does gain back her eyesight at some point, so that she may see Azhagan and the world with her own eyes. The character of Thenmozhi is not yet fully developed, but since I assume she is the heroine, I hope she will have a central role to play in the story later on.

I am sorry but i have no idea as to how to respond to so much praise and compliments.I have only these words for spain and for the other members,Thank you.

One hidden fact about me is i have no clue on how to respond to praises for not many people know that i am basically shy and an introvert.Sorry but that is the truth.I write so much but catch me personally and you will catch me staring at the floor or the ceiling or you will see me run and hide.

Dear spain,
As to the query about sadashivam and kamalam,their characters will come back when this story of azhagan and avini finishes and maybe they will come back in the next story i start writing.
43 chapters and i have yet to start writing the real important sequences which will deal with azhagan and thenmozhi and the downfall of the chola empire.I am basing my story on actual happenings of the tamil kingdoms and all the names can be googled and found on wiki.
Needless to say as i mentioned earlier all questions will be answered for the whole story has been written in my head and they are coming alive as a chapter at a time.
There will be times when i might write a chapter a day or even two and times when i am away for shooting that you will find only one chapter in one or two weeks.
Yes thenmozhi is the heroine for azhagan and soon i will write about their love and war.But Malar the tribal girl will play a significant part in azhagan's life and will die trying to save him.Soon the boy who went into the light will emerge as a young man and the plot will unravel.

Thanks for sharing that info, Satish.

Hi Meena,

Chapter 44


"It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self."? Criss Jami, Killosophy


There have been many a times during my morning runs that i have run through roads which were really bad.I choose to run on these roads my mind which has decided to explore roads in besantnagar which lie in a 5km radius around me.Some roads are well lit and some poorly.Some roads are just about okay and some are like those wild paths that run off into the forest.In some roads i have encountered dogs as big as autos and with teeth as sharp as knives.They look pretty scary for they glint and dazzle from a light beyond the streets.In some of my encounters i knew that they were about to charge and that is when i brought on the glint on my eyes and gazed straight and deep into the animal's eyes.I whisper with my bladder ready to let go " i go my way,you go back to sleep,no trouble.You get up,i bend down,you walk towards me,i pick up that rock,you even think of a mock charge,well try it and i make a noise that has the dog cock his head left and right and back down for i growl pretty badly.All that i have described above is so similar to life itself and the many phases it presents itself and you travel through.Good times,bad times,awful people,kind people.well,they did say life is a highway and yet there are single lanes,two lanes,four lanes and six lanes.But if you are patient you can drive through all of them.Life,roads,potholes,dogs,sharp teeth no matter what get that glint in your eyes,growl and face life.


Close encounters



It's not about what you say, it's about how you say it. It's not about what comes out of your mouth, it's about the reason behind your word.---------unknown


It had been many days since they had left the tribal village and the western ghats behind them and now they were going to cross into pandyan land.

Appanar iyya " child,are you excited to be back in your land."

Azhagan " I am just happy to be back and to see and be with my mother."

Appanar " but what about your country and your king."

Azhagan " all in good time and in the right time."

Appanar shook his head on hearing this cryptic statement and wondered when the right time was going to be.

The next day azhagan woke up well before sunrise and whispered to appanar iyya that he would meet him in two days at perumalpuram.He informed him that there was something important that needed to be done and it could not be put away for a better opportunity would not present itself.Saying this he went to the stream nearby and after quickly bathing left appanar iyya.

Kulothunga cholan's white horse wandered aimlessly through the forest as if sensing that its master's soul was also wandering aimlessly.The king had not been the same since the burning of the pandyan's coronation hall.He did not regret it but something told him that he had wronged badly and that the punishment he had meted out had been too harsh.Like all kings do,kulothungan disguised himself as an ordinary,wandering traveler and went about his domain to see for himself if all was well in the kingdoms.Now in his late fifties,kulothunga cholan was tired and wanted to hand over the reign of the kingdom to his son Rajaraja Chola III but he hesitated for he knew his son would not make a good king since he was a weak person in mind and in body and possessed no vision.

The horse of kulothungan whinnied gently and the king who had dozed off on the saddle woke up instantly and his right hand reached across to his left hip to draw the mighty sword.He woke up to see a boy coming towards him and just then the sun rose behind the child and lit him up.Kulothungan could see that the boy was all alone and armed with just a stick in his left hand and on his right side hung leather satchel.The rising sun dazzled brightly behind the boy and kulothungan knew it was not a chance meeting and that the two had come together for a purpose.He jumped off the horse with the vigor of an young man and was pleasantly surprised to see his mighty horse,a veteran of many battles go up to the boy and nudge his hand.

Kulothungan " I am really surprised for apart from me nobody has had the courage to approach VENGAIYAN,and here he comes to you on his own accord.Well child, whoever you are if my horse trusts you then you surely have my trust.Tell me who are you and what are you doing here all alone in this dangerous forest."

Azhagan " i am the light and i have come to you from the light."

Kulothungan looked at him sharply and tried to understand what the boy was saying but it made no sense to him.

Azhagan " King,are you well ?"

Kulothunga " i am well.actually i am not.I am a king and i am expected to be a king and when i behave like a king,then i am looked at by certain people with pride and by certain people with hate.there is just no pleasing everybody."

Azhagan " what you did was bad.but you can rectify it by rebuilding it."

Kulothungan suddenly realised that the boy was just not an ordinary boy and this was not a chance encounter and maybe it was a meeting with his soul.He whispered to his horse to graze for a bit and sat under a tree and signaled the child to come sit next to him.

" you know boy,ruling a kingdom is not easy leave alone living a life.So many expectation,so many needs and so many rules.I did not make them but my people who came before me made them and i have no other way but to follow them.I do my best to be fair and just in all my judgements and yes,i do agree that sometimes the punishment is harsh,harsher than is required.but what can i do for if i do not punish one and make an example of it then all the other kings will get ideas and rebel against me.You see,even though i own a large army that can vanquish any force in this world,i do not want to wage needless wars and be the reason for the deaths of thousands of soldiers.but when i am left with no choice but war for then war it is.

Azhagan closed his eyes and kulothungan sensed the child was in thought and waited for him to say something.

Azhagan opened his eyes and looked at the mighty king " You are a king,you are like a father and mother to your people.In you they have placed their trust and hopes for peace and security.But i also realise that you lead a complicated life and walk a tricky path.I guess one cannot please everybody and that sometimes the stick works better than the carrot.All i ask of you is be just,be kind and think of all the consequences before you act,for you wield a mighty blow even with the smallest act."

Kulothungan nodded tiredly " i know i erred when i ordered for the pandyan kings coronation hall to be burned down but let me confess from my soul that he left me with no choice.If i had not acted then i would have had to accept defeat and tell me what will my army,generals and the rest of my kingdom think of me after that.sometimes a cruel act is essential to strike terror in the hearts of would be and hidden enemies.i could have executed a hundred pandyan people,including the king and queen and nominated a new king.but i did not and i am sad and hurt that people of the pandyan kingdom think of me as an evil person.but it does not matter for what is done is done and there is peace for now at least."

Kulothungan looked at azhagan " I don't know why i feel the need or felt that i had to tell you all this.but i am glad i did.if i gave you a gift,would you honor me by accepting it."

Saying this he removed a pearl necklace with a green emerald and gifted it azhagan,who took it and placed it in his leather satchel.Then placing his stick on the ground he hugged kulothunga cholan gently and the mighty king felt the source and felt the depth of azhagan's soul.he knew he would never be the same again.

Azhagan bid kulothungan goodbye and went towards the east and towards avini.Kulothunga cholan sat watching the boy go and raised his eyes to the sky and whispered " why didn't you bless me with a son like that boy.He would have made a great king and ruled wisely and everyone would have been happy under his rule."

But the encounter had left him feeling strangely charged and motivated to do better as a king and so kulothungan the king and vengaiyan his white horse walked away from the path.the boy went in one direction and the king went in the opposite direction and just a few years later their paths would cross when azhagan the mighty warrior would charge into battle and lay waste to the entire chola army.He would come from the east with the sun behind him lighting his path and he would come with his long curly hair streaming behind him and with a mighty lion running besides him as his partner.Dressed only in white and barebodied with the pearl necklace hanging from his neck he would come not as azhagan but as Kathiravan and by the end of the day,a mighty empire which ruled for 400 years would be decimated and the skies would be covered by vultures and crows diving down eager to feast on the flesh of the dead chola soldiers.


"It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well." J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Chapter 45


"Single moms: You are a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a referee, a heroine, a provider, a defender, a protector, a true Superwoman. Wear your cape proudly." Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass


It has been a long time since my parents have gone beyond and yet the chasm in my soul remains.All that i remember about my father is a dark and tough looking chap,who got drunk and picked fights all over our neighbourhood.But i remember a lot of stuff about my mother and that she was gentle,the hot water bathing sessions,her stirring raagi mix to make raagi balls ( famous in karnataka),her pain she suffered for she was always pregnant,her sitting by my kid brother navin as he passed away from blood cancer.These are things that have been seared,branded in my brain and memories that i will not forget even when i am suffering from an advance stage of Alzheimers disease.when i came into my teens and girls started showing interest i really had no clue as to what or how to approach them and be with them.I think in the beginning i looked for all the lost things in the wrong places and hurt many and hurt myself in the process.One girl particularly told me " you don't trust easily and because of this you will be alone.always in your soul." I shrugged my shoulders and went my way and she walked away with tears in her eyes,crying for her pain or crying for mine,i have no idea.But in the end i bared my soul,i emptied my mind and everything worked out well.



I am azhagan and i will always remain the son of Avini


He felt her from miles away.He felt her pining for him to come home to her arms even from that distance.His heart skipped a million times and his eyes rained a stream of sweet,happy tears and his legs sprouted wings and his senses flew towards his mother.

Avini sat at the edge of the forest waiting for her son to come back.She had been doing this from the time azhagan had gone away with appanar iyya and from first light to last light she sat under the tree near the edge of the village and the boundary from where the forest began its kingdom.Avini sat in the same place sometimes lost in the thought of azhagan and sometimes she sang loudly of the pain in her heart.sometimes she spoke in whispers to the spirit who gave him to her and thanked him and sometimes pleaded with the same entity to give her sight so that she could see her son.But she was never alone for the huge black maned lion always stood guard over her and nothing or no one dared to come near her.The temple priest's wife brought her food in the afternoon and sometimes they would both go to the small stream to have a bath.The priest's wife Kodhai, treated avini like her daughter and watched over her and tended to all her needs.But in a way all this was done for the sake of azhagan and the legends that had begun from the time he had come into light.


Avini felt him in her soul before he came.She felt his love for her and she stood up with her arms stretched out aching to hold her baby again and from the forest came the light.Avini was blind but this light was so bright that she felt it in every cell of her body.She felt the light and it was similar to the spirit who had come to her in the forest,but brighter and more powerful in its intensity and in the center stood her son,AZHAGAN.

Avini held hed hands out and azhagan came rushing into them and the circle closed and their spirits were one.She felt all his thoughts and he gave to her his memories and all that had happened.She realised the source and slowly lifted her hands and felt his face and then planted kisses all over it.


"Eendra pozhudhinum peridhuvakkum than maganai
sandron ena ketta thaai"

Great is the joy of the mother when a child is born to her; but greater is her joy when she hears his unblemished character and merits from others.


My life is your life
My memories are your memories
My song is your song
My death is never a real one
For in you i live
And in me you live
From my blood and from my soul
from my darkness and into light
you have come shining through
and from my blindness i come into your light
I am Avini and i am Azhagan
I am you and you are me
We are the circle of life
Never ending and forever we shall be

satish



"She is the creature of life, the giver of life, and the giver of abundant love, care and protection. Such are the great qualities of a mother. The bond between a mother and her child is the only real and purest bond in the world, the only true love we can ever find in our lifetime." Ama H.Vanniarachchy

Chapter 46


"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A quote is just a sentence or two of words in any given language and yet they are more.A quote,a genuinely good quote is one which has you glued to the seat and your eyes glued to the screen and you keep reading them again and again thinking " wow.but that is good and it really makes me think."
I wish all our lives,all over the world was like a good quote,lived in harmony and content.But they are just wishes and i know practically impossible.There are certain qualities or functional things about so called life and starting from the lowest form of life bacteria,virus etc to the highest form of life human and other animals we are all involved in the so called race for life.The very nature of evolution is a certain species mutating or developing skills to be better than the previous model.Yes each version gets better and better and they get better for dominance in life and in the fight for food and space.
Where or why this quality was bestowed or passed on to life on earth i have no clue and i guess it just is and one has to learn to live with it.But along with this hunger for food and space came the hunger for power and that is the scary one.For that is a global epidemic and a sure bet for global level deaths.World war one and world war two have proved what can happen and how many millions can die before peace or so called peace was ensured.Heroes,villains it does not matter for lives are lost and sadly most of them are innocent ones and they do not know why they fight or what they fight for and still they fight.



Let there be light


Avini gently ran her fingers trying to remove the knots in her child's hair. For her being with her son and breathing the same air around him was enough and she was content and really happy.But she found it slightly strange and frustrating that he did not talk as much as he used to do before he went away on the voyage with appanar iyya.But avini sensed that her child was not just a child anymore and that he had grown up.He was taller than her and strong,really strong and yet with her he was like how he had been before gentle and soft spoken.Even now sometimes he would lay his head on her lap and drift off to sleep as he went on talking to her about the mountains and all the beautiful sights of "Sairandhrivanam".

Life awakening
Flower opens in the sun
A world is reborn
Warm sun on the ground
A flower growing stronger
Life under the sun
Darkening Shadows
Flower drifts to gentle sleep
The world is resting
Blankets of cold white
Flower hidden from the cold
Life waiting for spring

A famous japanese haiku


The three of them sat near the stream with their legs in the water and they were chatting merrily like they used to do when they were children.At least two of them, avini and appanar iyya did for azhagan was still young in years and for them he would always remain young.The years had rolled by and azhagan was nearly seventeen years old and very tall for his age.Most would have mistaken him to be much older than what he actually was and yet everybody in the village knew him and thought of him as their own child and treated him thus.

Azhagan turned and looked at Appanar " Iyya, i want you to go to madurai carrying a message from me to the king.Tell him that peace is possible between the pandyas and cholas and that if he is ready then a meeting will be arranged between him and kulothungan cholan.If he asks who you are and how you could make such a request,remind him of the darkness and the boy who raised him when he was drowning in it.That will and should do the trick.But try and deliver this message in private.And from there you need to go and see Emperor kulothungan cholan and deliver the same message and ask him to release our men in a show of good faith.If he asks who sent you,then tell him the boy with the pearl necklace and i am sure he will listen and understand .As for me the time has come when i have to return to "Sairandhrivanam" and continue for the master waits for me."

Appanar nodded " I guess there is no retirement for me even in this old age.Very well, i will do as you have requested for i know that whatever your plan is, it is for the good.When do you want me to leave and when are you leaving to "Sairandhrivanam" ?

Azhagan " we will both leave at first light tommorrow".


The three of them sat quietly in the shade of the trees and with the water gurgling over their feet and after sometime appanar left for he knew mother and child had things to talk about.

Azhagan put his right arm around and rested her on his chest and with a burst of his senses,light enveloped her in his source and soul.Avini saw the world as her son saw and understood that all he wanted was to be next to her till the last of his breath.But she understood that he wanted to bring peace to their land and for this he would be going away again.She knew now that how ever far the distance she and him would always be one mind and one soul and that he would hasten if she really needed him.

Azhagan whispered " mother,all of us have a destiny.But even after spending time with the spirits in the forest and with the old master in the mountains,i think they are waiting to tell me what my destiny will be or if there is one.All these matters of politics and war are not for me and i would gladly turn my back on them and walk away with you into the forest.But i feel that there are certain duties that i have to fulfill before i do that.so kindly bear with my absence and do not worry too much about me."

Avini nodded but only she as a mother knew and understood how difficult it was to be away from her son and yet she told him to go about his business boldly and without worrying about her.

Far away in madurai and in the palace Thenmozhi sang to the king in her beautiful voice and it brought tears to the bedridden king.He winked and asked her to come sit next to her.Thenmozhi walked towards the king and kulashekaran imagined what a wonderful and beautiful queen she would make for maravarman once he had been crowned king of the pandyan kingdom.

Kulashekaran looked at thenmozhi's sad face and with spit dribbling on his chin asked her what was troubling her.

Thenmozhi looked at the king " It has been nearly ten years and still my father remains jailed in the chola kingdom.Along with him are most of our generals of the army,horse and elephant battalions.My heart breaks in sorrow in thought of my father and our men and yet nothing is being done to release them.You lie here stricken with paralysis and maravarman rules in paralysis and it is as if the entire pandyan kingdom is paralysed.What else can i do other than cry for my father and for my people."

Together the present king and the future queen of the pandyan kingdom cried and both decided on what they wanted and started planning on how to go about it.Kulashekaran pandyan decided that there was no time to waste and would crown maravarman pandyan and soon after that get him and thenmozhi married and maybe then he could die in peace knowing that the kingdom was in good hands for even if maravarman failed,thenmozhi would rule and rule better than him and his brother.
Thenmozhi decided that enough was enough and that she would finally go ahead and launch the plan she had hatched on how to rescue her father and the generals from the prison.She decided that she and her best friends and a few soldiers from the captive generals families would enter thanjai,the capital of the chola kingdom in disguise and launch a sneak attack and rescue her father and the rest of the men.


"God is going to send you someone that will rescue you. Then one day you will rescue them in return and together your story will rescue others. He has always been a God of rescues and a maker of warrior's for his grace. You only need to believe that you are part of something greater than you know."-Shannon L. Alder

Spain,