Spgm 001 - Silappadigaram, The Killer Anklet Poem by Rajaram Ramachandran

The story of 'Silappadigaram or "The Killer Anklet" has been attracting me for several years for two reasons.

(1) It was written some 1400 years ago by a Prince-turned-Jain Saint, Illangovadigal in the Sangam age Tamil poetry, which reflected the culture and the life style of the people of that time in the Southern parts of India.

(2) The story was filmed in black and white more than 50 years ago. It touched my heart to see the sufferings of Kannagi, a chaste woman faithful to her husband Kovalan, despite his extra relationship with a dancing girl, Madhavi, which broke down later on due to a misunderstanding between the two. He joined back his wife to restart his life by selling one of her anklets, but he was killed by the king on a false charge of theft of a queen's anklet brought on him by a cunning goldsmith, who actually stole it. Kannagi proved that the king was wrong by breaking her second anklet. The king died for the miscarriage of justice, followed by the queen, who also died on the spot. One anklet was the root cause for several deaths and so, the story revolves around this killer anklet that happened at three places, Pugar, Madurai and Vanchi of those ancient periods in Tamilnadu, South India.

This book was well appreciated by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President of India. He wrote to me on 6th July 2006, saying that he liked the book very much, and in particular, the stanza (Verse-14 Page 275 of the Book) .

''She's like a daughter of Pandian,
Now settled with him in the Heaven,
'Pandian shall die, if justice is broken,
She made this rule, let us sing about her.'

The Late American Poetess, Ms.Sandra Fowler of West Virginia, USA, gave her liberal comments on this book, (about 10 pages) , which I shall post later on to show how she liked this story in simple verse format.