Fifty years ago today, December 25, 1972, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, one of the titans of India's freedom struggle, passed into the ages. Kalki Krishnamurthy, who penned the Tamil classic Ponniyin Selvan among numerous other novels, describes his first glimpse of the man who would become an august national leader and his cherished role model.

Gowri Ramnarayan explores the world of Kalki Krishnamurthy whose magnificent novel Ponniyin Selvan has inspired Mani Ratnam's latest film PS I.