Review: Leela Devi Panikar’s ‘Bathing Elephants’

As the inimitable Khalil Gibran has stated, ‘Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.’ Leela Devi Paniker’s stories have that depth and pathos, the few reluctant albeit genuine smiles, the tears of grief and longing and eventually eternal hope, sprouting from the womb of the earth, whilst inducing the character(s) to move on and rediscover life, says Monica Arora in this review

Once in a while, there comes along such a deep-rooted and evocative piece of prose that leaves readers spellbound and mesmerized for days after putting the book away.  Leela Devi Panikar’s ‘Bathing Elephants’ has this lilting, haunting, melancholic quality that touches the deepest cockles of the heart and wrings one, inside out!

Following her debut collection of short stories entitled ‘Floating Petals’, all six tales in ‘Bathing Elephants’ are characterized by simplicity of expression and brevity. The author brilliantly conveys so much pathos and emotion in very few words and uses an easy narrative tenor throughout the manuscript.