Nandhini

Nandhini is a fictional character created by Kalki. There are lot of mysteries around her. One of them is who is her father and lover. Few places Veerapandiyan portrayed as her father and few places as lover.

Most of the evidences are pointing to the fact that Veerapandiyan is her lover.

Evidences for Veerapandiyan – Her Lover

• Nandhini mentions very clearly that Veerapandiyan is her lover, not only in the first part (Pudhu vellam – Nandhiniyin Kaadhalan) but even also in the fourth part.
• Just before the murder of Aditya, The head of Pandiyan appears before Nandhini and she exclaims and talks in hallucination like this “Oh Dear ! Have you come ? Welcome !….and so on…”.
• In the novel whenever Nandhini talks about Veerapandiyan she always says that he is her lover, Even at that critical moment when Pandiya is in great danger.

Evidences for Veerapandiyan – Her Father

• There is a contradiction where, when she has her final talk with Adithya. Even there, Kalki does not provide this directly. He writes like this, Nandhini said “..My father is …..father is……………..”.
• Later Vanthiyathevan says to Kundavai that he overheard this conversation and heard that she was mentioning the name of Veerapandiya here. Now, why the author does not provide this fact directly during Nandhini’s final dialoge and provides the info at a much later stage?
• The other evidence is by Karuthiruman. But remember that Karuthiruman is totally inconsistent in his story. At one point of time he says he fathered Nandhini. He has no interest in cholas and is very faithful to pandiyas. There is no reason for him to reveal such a big secret to Vanthiyathevan, that too during a time pass chat! Remember that he deserts vanthiyathevan instantly.

In the conclusion Kalki says “Just before her death, Nandhini reveals her birth secret to Arulmozhi…”. If Kalki felt that the secret has already been revealed through Vanthiyathevan he need not have written these lines at all.

The fact is that Kalki deliberately confused the readers. Thus Kalki very deleberately presents a very consistent picture throughout the Novel that Veerapandiyan is indeed Nandhini’s Lover.

But who might be her father?