1950s-1960s
Writing for her college literary magazine, the Minor Bird in Chatham College, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Prema was encouraged when her story Ink, won the best prize for writing.
Her return to India led to her writing short stories, serialised mystery novels and researching the best places to publish them. As her friend and fellow writer, Shashi Despande said, “If today, there are many more publishers for novels than there were some years back, it is an entirely different picture as far as short-stories go.”
The market for short-stories was limited, publishing in the Sainik Samachar, an army newsletter, Illustrated Weekly, where Kushwant Singh encouraged writers to local Sunday newspapers like the Deccan Herald, Prema spent as much time writing her stories as she did finding avenues to get them published.
International markets were no easier, Reader’s Digest International and Short Story International, published by International Cultural Exchange, did publish her stories alongside those of Woody Allen, Paul Theroux and Doris Lessing, but there was no income to be made from her profession.
Teaching, working as a drama critic at the Indian Express and juggling between being a mother, wife, teacher was work enough. She would often write after eleven at night when her children were asleep, only to be up again at six in the morning to make breakfast, packed lunches and start her day routine.
Theatre was still her first love in these early years.
1970s-1980s
Continuing this merry-go-round through the Seventies and Eighties, she had a little respite in 1980 when the last of her children finished high school and she had a little more time to focus on her writing.
Gathering all her work together, she was commissioned to create her first anthology of short stories, The Blue Convertible, by The Writers Workshop also published her play Gandhi, Man of the Millions.
1990s-2000
Torn between working as a playwright and short-story writer, Prema found new direction when her husband was posted to Tiruchirapalli in 1981, the city closest to her ancestral village Angarai in south India. She found a deep sense of belonging and moved to writing short-stories more activity, a preparation for her next solo anthology A Fine Gift For Lakshmi. As many critics commented, there was a real “south-Indianess” to the stories.
A return to Bangalore in 1985, an empty-nester with a retired husband, Prema did a third degree in Business Adminstration at the age of 60, topping her class. She used drama to teach communications, integrating role-play and becoming a leadership coach. Rahul Dravid, a friend’s son from the Indiranagar neighbourhood, the Indian cricket captain at the time, was one of her many mentees.
Prema wrote a few more unpublished plays, My Dear Ba, dedicated to Kasturba, Gandhi’s wife and The Waiting Room, a two-hander about how two strangers share their life stories in a railyway station waiting room. Her plays were getting international recognition and her short-story writing was mixed with essays on life.
Prose, short-fiction and plays one the one hand and a segue, to finding a publisher for her first novel, Water on a Lotus Leaf, were part of this uneasy transition from a full-time mother and wife, to a life of more time and leisure.
In the late 1990s she had to dedicate most of her energy to the rapidly declining health of her husband, who suffered from Parkison’s disease and had a mild stroke.
2000-2017
Nearly a decade of mourning, post her husband’s death in 2000, resulted in the shift to writing short-stories and short-plays. Her work became more bold, experimental, challenging norms and chasing forgotten dreams.
In 2012, Butterfly Dreams, her final solo anthology was published.
She started Songbyrde Publishing in the 2000s and worked with writer’s collectives publishing new work of writers lending her name and experience to their creative energies.
In 2013, she published her final collected anthology with Inklinks, a group of women writers in Bangalore.
Solo Anthologies
The Blue Convertible
The Writers Workshop, 1985
A Fine Gift From Lakshmi
Foreword by Malathi Rao, reader in English, Delhi University, professor of English, Miranda House, New Delhi. Launched at the Oxford Bookstore, Leela Palace Hotel, Bangalore by Prakash Belawadi.
Songbyrde Publications, 2007
Butterfly Dreams
Launched at the Bangalore International Centre by Prakash Belawadi, Ammu Joseph and SG Vasudev, master of ceremonies, Jyothi Subbarao
Songbyrde Publications, 2012
Collected Anthologies
Many Rooms Many Voices
A collection of short stories. Edited and with an introduction by Dr. Cheriyan Alexander, foreword by Shashi Deshpande, preface by M Veerappa Moily, former Chief Minister, Karnataka State. Launch Shankar’s Book Store, Bangalore.
Katha Lok, Bangalore 2000
Bhelpuri
A collection of short stories from Inklinks women writers from Bangalore. Foreword by Shashi Deshpande. Launched at the British Library, Bangalore and unveiled by professor Malathi Rao.
Songbyrde Publications, 2009
The Shrinking Woman and other stories
Edited by Meenakshi Varma & Annie Chandy Mathew. Launched at the Reliance TimeOut Bookstore, Bangalore and unvieled by Teresa Bhattacharya, former Chief Minister, Karnataka State
Unison Publications, 2009
Door In the Wall
A collection of short stories from Inklinks Women Writers from Bangalore
Notion Press, 2013
