Tamil stories come from a long tradition. Many of us have grown up listen- ing to them. There is no one who has never encountered a story. It is said that there are more stories than there are grains of sand on the sea shore.
Like people, stories too travel from place to place. They change their form, they evolve. I think of stories as eternal travellers. What is the life span of a story? No one knows. Stories that have made a place for them- selves in people’s minds live forever.
During my college days I read a collection of stories titled, The World’s Best Short Stories. It was a wonderful collection of 100 stories by the most famous writers in the world. I thought what a pity it was that there was no such collection of stories by writers in Tamil. An idea was born in my mind ... perhaps I could try to bring out such a collection to introduce young readers to outstanding Tamil stories.