Aditha Karikalan: Celebs Rumors

Shalini Dore Features News Editor When last we saw the title character of Mani Ratnam’s epic “Ponniyin Selvan” saga, the real-life prince who would expand the Chola empire from South India all the way to the Ganges in the north was drowning as he crossed from Lanka to India. Instead of picking up at that cliffhanger, the action-packed second installment rewinds a few decades to focus on different characters, before circling back to reveal the fate of Jayam Ravi’s title character, also known as Arunmozhi Varman. “Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two” starts by filling in the backstory of how Arunmozhi’s older brother, Crown Prince Aditha Karikalan (Vikram), fell for Nandini (Aishwariya Rai Bachchan), an orphaned girl living with a priest family at the local temple. The royal family disapproved of him marrying a girl whose antecedents weren’t known, and so she was chased off. The story then picks up to when reports reach town that the younger prince has drowned.

Shalini Dore Features News Editor Filmmaker Mani Ratnam has taken on the epic task of adapting Tamil bestseller “Ponniyin Selvan” into two parts, the first of which released to excellent box office in India and overseas on Sept. 29. The film, with screenplay by Ratnam, Jayamohan and Kumaravel, is mostly faithful to Kalki Krishnamurthy’s five novels, the trio has streamlined the historical fiction first serialized in the 1950s in the Tamil magazine Kalki before being translated into multiple other languages, including English. They were based on the great ruler Raja Raja Chola (Chola, king of kings), who expanded his empire from modern-day Tamilnadu all the way north to the Ganges.