“Veeran irukkaan!” they say in Madurai. “Veeran is there.”

The news reached Madurai’s court. Instead of ordering an execution, the young Queen—the legendary Meenakshi —was intrigued. She summoned Veeran. When he stood before her, barefoot and unbowed, she saw not a rebel but a weapon waiting for a wielder.

The moment his blood touched the ground, the earth trembled. A blinding light erupted from his body, and the neem tree turned into a karuvelam thorn bush—sacred and fierce. The assassins fled, blinded and cursed.