I watched the weekly episode of Chidampara Ragasiyam yesterday. This serial is the best 30 minutes of Sun TV currently; I try not to miss it. Everything is simply superb in that serial. The story, screenplay, cast, music, editing and even the credits. The way director links episodes is great. For those of you who don't know, it is a thriller based on Naadi Jothidam and cure for AIDS and revolves around a dozen murders.

For those who follow this serial, who do you think is orchestrating the murders? The unraveling over the last several episodes point to Kumaraguru (the magazine Editor) and Thulasi (his daughter). Given the directors superior skills, I doubt it will be that simplistic. The Editor and his daughter may just be a red herring. I am also not expecting the director to drop a new villain unknown to us. (like Rajeshkumar does in his popular crime novels) The best ending will be one where the villain is a conspicuous character, or at least known character, but we couldn't guess. It should be consistent with all prior episodes and should make sense in hindsight. Can't wait to see the rest.

In yesterday's episode, the forensic detective was showing the police inspector, Tamil script from 2000 years back on a tablet PC. That took me on a nostalgic journey. When I was a student at RECT during late 80s, during my weekend trips home I made it a habit to stop by Thanjavur temple, palace etc and spend some time. I got that interest mainly from my love of Kalki's classic Ponniyin Selvan. I was thrilled to roam on the same land where Rajarajan, Kundavai, Vallavaraiyan Vandhiyathevan, Vanathi and others walked. During that time, I made it a hobby to try to read the Tamil that is carved in walls, floors everywhere. To some extent, I was able to. Much latter (late 90s), I got hold of a chart that shows the evolution of Tamil scripts over centuries, see below.