Preetha Rajah Kannan- Listening Between the Lines of the Divine

Preetha Rajah Kannan is a storyteller at heart. She has had a long and varied literary career, from producing stories for kids to figuring out the ancient echoes of mythology. Her route has never been a straight line; instead, it has been a series of transformations, all of which come from her natural urge to tell stories. Whether she was writing for The New Indian Express, editing the Navagraha Purana, or later making up worlds in The Shiva Trilogy and The Tiger Throne: Ponniyin Selvan, her voice was always the same: clear, layered with observation, and always trying to connect with the reader.

Preetha's choice to write mythological fiction was more practical because she had always been interested in the genre or had been obsessed with epics as a child. She admits that she resorted to mythology since it was the most popular genre at the time and gave her the best chance of getting published. But what began out as a planned entry rapidly turned into a place for her to look into problems that have been around for a long time. Her work as an editor and journalist has taught her to look at a narrative from several points of view, pick up on small details, and make her point without losing its meaning. This impact shows in how she writes fiction: she writes with emotional authenticity, leaves out unnecessary details, and always knows what she wants the reader to learn.

She can plan her day around her writing because she is from Madurai, where she lives as a homemaker and mother of two. She claims that her home life has helped her understand her characters' emotions, especially the women in her stories. She also says that this era of her life lets her spend more time on her creative work. Her stories feel real since they are often based on her own life. Her "family first" perspective has helped her understand the emotional lives of women who are dealing with love, sorrow, commitment, and strength, not because it has constrained her.

She still loves short stories very much. She says that her initial interest in literature was short stories, especially those for young readers. When she wrote for kids, she could use her own childhood experiences as inspiration. Short stories let her put her own memories, sentiments, and sense of wonder directly into the story. Mythological fiction, on the other hand, requires a lot of research into cultural references and sometimes doesn't offer much room for personal projection. Her contributions to The Tale of an Ice Cream and other short stories show this playful, tender side of her storytelling. But mythology has given her a chance to change. In her first book in this genre, Shiva in the City of Nectar, she calls it an exploring effort. She was unsure if she could do a good job of conveying spiritual ideas, so she treated it with care and respect.

In the end, she found her voice and confidence. Her current goal is to tell these stories in a way that keeps their spiritual basis while also getting readers emotionally involved. In her later works, she purposely simplified her approach to make mythology seem more real and personal.

This change is very obvious in her most recent work, Sita and Ravana: The Last Battle –by Jaico Publishing. In this work, she sees Sita as a divine power, Shakti herself, instead of a helpless victim. This new version is based on the less well-known Adbhut Ramayana, which is a variation of the epic in which Sita shows her cosmic form. This insight really struck a chord with Preetha. Like a lot of women, she had a hard time accepting some of the traditional ways Sita was shown. Seeing Sita as a heavenly, powerful force was both a validation of what I thought and a summons to revise a story that has been around for a long time.

Writing about Sita and Ravana meant focusing on both the emotional core of the Ramayana and its grandeur. She said that the hard part was making the action easier while still showing the characters' inner lives. She purposely made the reader feel like they were in her characters' lives, dealing with their problems, moral dilemmas, and choices. In this story, great fights are powered by both spirit and emotion, not only by real fighting.

In the book, Ravana is also made to be more complicated. Preetha doesn't make him a one-dimensional bad guy; instead, she presents him as a complicated person who is both smart and arrogant, strong and weighted down by his ego. The Pushkar fight scene, in which Ravana lets Rama's army go home, was a big turning point in her creative career. This small act shows that Ravana is human, has inner conflict, and can be merciful, even if only for a short time. The last fight between Sita and Ravana in the book is shown to be the result of years of both mental and physical conflict. Sita, who has been in the background, eventually steps forward when Rama is about to die at her feet. When she changes into Shakti, who has a lot of spiritual power, Ravana dies.

Preetha is trying to show that the actual conflict is inside by focusing on it here. The outside strife is just a backdrop for deeper moral and spiritual issues. At the heart of this debate is a strong belief in personal agency. The primary idea of Sita and Ravana for Preetha is choice. Fate may guide the characters, but their choices—often made at tremendous personal cost—decide what happens to them. She wants others to know that even if it appears like life is set in stone, what we do matters. What we choose matters. Another purpose of Preetha's presentation of Sita as Shakti is to raise the idea of the divine feminine. People see Sita's strength as something different from passivity. They see it as a kind of strength that can stay latent until it is needed. Preetha sees this Shakti in ladies all around the world every day. She wants people to see Sita as both a mythological deity and a part of themselves.

There are parts of the text where the philosophical and emotional issues come out, especially in the dialogue and internal monologues. Preetha says that one example of this is when Vishnu had to answer for what he did before. He stumbles for a moment when the wise men scold him for lying to Pravat and Narada. She believes that the true beauty of our faith is in that stillness, where even gods are weak and human. It reminds us that the law of karma is true for everyone. Throughout the novel, she compares Sita's heavenly power to Ravana's intelligence. Sita doesn't say anything while Ravana yells with pride and anger, but that changes when the time comes. Her total and utter destruction of Ravana is a metaphor for how spiritual strength is stronger than and lasts longer than physical strength.

Preetha says that this shows a more general moral truth: no matter how loud and powerful the ego is, it can't stand in the way of true divinity. Even though readers already knew how the Ramayana ended, she had a hard time keeping the plot exciting while she wrote this book. She tried to keep things friendly and light. Instead than trying to change the whole epic, she focused on Pushkar and gave a new twist to a well-known plot element. The novel's main theme is the classic battle between good and evil, but Preetha says that these two points of view are not set in stone. Characters switch between the two based on their ego, feelings, and the situation. She makes it very obvious that we are not all nice or bad. We are a dynamic balance that can shift.

Preetha says she wants to take a vacation from mythology and history while she thinks about the future. Her next goal is to publish a nonfiction book that has funny and thought-provoking thoughts. She used to love epic stories and mythological

characters, but now she's interested in a different kind of story that is based on the everyday, maybe even the boring, but is made better by wisdom. She has always had to plan ahead to balance writing and family duties, but she has gotten better at it over the years. She generally gets ideas while cooking or cleaning, but she always finishes her chores before writing. She writes down her ideas as she has them. Writing is a big part of who she is. Preetha provides budding writers who are interested in mythology and history simple, Valuable advice: learn about your own family history. Find out how you see tales in a different way. She says that Valmiki and Vyasa would probably want intellectual property rights if they were here today. In each of her books, Preetha Rajah Kannan adds something very personal to classic stories.

She has had the courage to look at stories that have been around for hundreds of years again, not to challenge their basic ideas, but to show us parts of them that we often miss. Her writing makes you think instead of demanding your attention. Also, her words make mythology appear less like something from the past and more like something that shows who we are now.