“Akka! Do you remember when I nearly drowned in the Kaveri floods at the age of five? Do you recall how Mother Kaveri saved me, lifted me up, placed me in a boat, and then vanished?” asked Arulmozhi Varman.

“What sort of question is that, thambi! How could I ever forget? Isn’t that very incident the reason you are called ‘Ponniyin Selvan’?” replied Kundavai.

“I saw the very Mother Kaveri who saved me in Lanka, akka!… What is this, you are silent? Are you not surprised?”

“I am not surprised, thambi. But I am filled with curiosity. Tell me everything about her!”

“I cannot tell it all in a single day, in one sitting. Let me tell you only the most important part. It was not only from the Kaveri flood that she saved me; in Lanka, she has saved my life many times. But saving my life is not the greatest thing, akka! Many people, by chance, save the lives of others. But the love she has for me—no world in all these fourteen realms can equal it… In fact, even the love you have for me, I must place only next to hers!”

“You need not hesitate to say that. My love for you is not so lofty; it is tinged with self-interest. I speak the truth, thambi! The greatness of this Chola Empire is what matters most to me. My affection for you is because you are of use to that cause. If ever I thought you would become an obstacle to that aim, my love could even turn to hatred. But the love of that mute and deaf woman is not like that. For over twenty years, the love that overflowed in her heart for our father she has now poured entirely upon you. No, not even the fourteen worlds can equal that!”

“How do you know this, akka?”

“What are you referring to, thambi?”

“That she is our Periya Thaayar—our elder mother?” “From what Father said, and from what Vandiyathevan told me, I have tried to guess, my brother! Does she think of you as her own son? Or as the son of the concubine?”

“Such a distinction has never arisen in my mind; nor do I see even a trace of it in hers. Why do you speak as if there is such a difference?”

“Brother, our mother sits upon the throne where that mute woman ought to have been seated. Even knowing this, if she still shows you such affection, is that not something remarkable?”

“She must surely know that I was not born of her womb. Can the difference in age go unnoticed? She cannot speak; she cannot express what is in her heart. Whatever I could understand from the signs and drawings she made, I have understood. Let her love for me be as it is; but when I think of the love she must have had for our father, my heart melts at once. Akka! Was our father like me