This is my journal of the time spent with Vel Pari, a son of the vast and storied Bharata lands. History will remember him as a warrior king and a great administrator of Parambu Nadu who braved the combined might of the Cheran, Cholan and Pandyan.

The widowed father of two angelic girls, Pari was also a gentle soul. And my beloved friend.

My record of events relies on Pari’s many recollections, confided for the purpose of posterity, but for the greater part these notes are my observations, faulty as these might be.

I know of another, my former master and man of craft, Raj Guru Kachagan of the Cholan Empire, who is also maintaining parallel ledgers. If his Emperor Cholan prevails, Kachagan’s version of antiquity will attain ascendency over mine.

But I believe the world will remember Pari for the gift of his chariot to a common vine, a bent jasmine; just as the misty swirls of memory will swallow the Emperor Cholan’s name. History will remember the Cholan by many names, none of which his own but all written on the shifting sands of time.

As for Kachagan, he does not wish the present to remember him, the past. He once said we were two denizens stuck on the wall and lived on borrowed space, on borrowed time. By that, he meant I was a fly for he fancied himself a gecko. Kachagan was right. He was like a lizard. Cold. Calculating. Callous.

He wrote his version of the events we witnessed and lived. Perhaps his narrative holds better truth. You be the judge, for it is your history we relate.

Kabilar

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Copyright @ Eric Alagan, 2019

Continued Monday 12 August 2019