The South India story attempted here is of a peninsular region influencedby the oceans, not by the Himalayas. Yet it is more than that. It is a story of facets of four powerful culturesKannada, Malayalam, Tamiland Telugu, to name them in alphabetical orderand yet more than that, for Kodava, Konkani, Marathi, Oriya and Tulu cultures have also influencedit, as also other older and possibly more indigenous cultures often seen astribal, as well as cultures originating in other parts of India and the world. With South Indias Malayalam region being (in modern times) the mostbalanced in terms of religion and also the most literate, its Kannada zoneoccupying South Indias geographical centre and containing the sites of theVijayanagara kingdom and also the kingdom of Haidar and Tipu, its Teluguportion the largest in area and holding the most people, and its Tamilpart the most Dravidian and possessing the oldest literature, the fourprincipal cultures are, unsurprisingly, competitive. But they are also complementary. This is a Dravidian story, and also more than that. It is a story involving four centuries, the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth, yet other periods intrude upon it... | Modern South India-a History From The 17th Century To Our Times by Rajmohan Gandhi, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters