Novels are often considered (and generally are) better than a collection of short stories. However, on occasions, you may call them special, short stories have that thing to beat novels which keep you indulged for prolonged hours of leisure. One such short story collection by Prema Raghavan, who happens to have taught students and teachers both, Eve in the Land of Kali that I read recently, kept me very thoughtful, throughout the length of the book. It is a collection of 12 short stories which are same in terms of protagonists – all women, different age groups and different roles in the society and family. Though it may be noticed right at the cover itself – Eve, Kali and an image that shows the readers a woman with long hairs in a garden. So, in this review article, I will be discussing a few important points about this book.

The short stories are mostly emotional as they bring a mixture of emotions. You can feel like having a few drops of tears in your eyes or having an implicit smile on your lips. At times, you can feel like associating your emotions or bias with this character and at times, that character. Dr Prema Raghavan, who has made her fiction writing debut with this title only, has written several academic books in the past and also co-authored some of them. However, in her very first attempt at writing fiction, she has been highly successful in bringing the literary ethos out. You can feel the flow of the language she has used in the short stories. Never stopping and detailed, bringing the tiny and minute details about feelings in hearts and thoughts in the minds… giving the readers a complete 360-glimpse of a character… internally.

The short stories, overall, deal with casual and usual emotional episodes of life that feature women. How do you feel as a mother when your only son brings his girlfriend on lunch without even telling you? How do you feel like a girl who has been pushed to meet her future mother-in-law who is not even ready to accept her arrival? How do you feel like a girl who grows up to know that she is not as good-looking as others in the family and that’s why she is not liked? How do you feel like a woman who knows her husband indulges with other women but cannot do anything? There are many realistic plots which have been protracted into wonderful short stories that readers will like, appreciate and also associate with.

At the end of this review, I would like to point out that Prema’s book, Eve in the Land of Kali, is not only a collection of wonderful short stories but rather a rainbow of human emotions that has been presented to the readers in a wonderful, artistic and literary-rich language. I am sure this collection will leave a lasting impression on the readers and they will have memories with them to share… after many months, read something truly wonderful from an Indian author and all this, I think, could only be this way because Dr Prema has written about the issues that are there on the ground instead of taking her fiction inside the closed doors of urban landscapes.

You can buy this book from Amazon India by clicking the link below:

Buy Dr Prema’s book now – click here to get a copy (Amazon India) 

Review by Samridhi for BookWorm Reviews