
I never thought of reading a full book before, but it had happened by his fascinating narrating of the story. But I was trapped by his writing and I lost my dinner that night and finally put down the book after 12.00. When I was pursuing my Master's degree at Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, it was happened to read Kalki's "PARTHIBAN KANAVU" (thanks for my room-mate a good reader then), ofcourse I started the novel by 7.10 pm as a short time pass until the dinner 7.30 pm. Many thanks to Kalki for bringing me the habit of reading books!!. Kalki had also the genius to classify the historical and non-historical events, historical and non-historical characters and how much the novel owes to history. Sixty years ago, at a time when the literacy level was low and when the English-educated Tamils looked down on writings in Tamil, Kalki’s circulation touched 71,000 copies – the largest for any weekly in the county then – when it serialised his historical novels. The success that Krishnamurthy attained in the realm of historical fiction is phenomenal. Ki’, ‘Tamil Theni’, ‘Karnatakam’ and so on. He wrote under the pen names of ‘Kalki’, ‘Ra. Krishnamurthy’s witty, incisive comments on politics, literature, music and other forms of art were looked forward to with unceasing interest by readers.

His writings includes over 120 short stories, 10 novelettes, 5 novels, 3 historical romances, editorial and political writings and hundreds of film and music reviews. His name also represents “Kalki avatar”, the tenth and last avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu.


He derived his pen name from the suffixes of his wife name Kalyani and his name Krishnamurthy in Tamil form கல்யாணி and கிருஷ்ணமூர்த்தி as Kalki (கல்கி). Tamil language Novel Writer, Journalist, Poet & Critic late Ramaswamy Aiyer Krishnamurthy also known as ‘Kalki’.
