WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS

If you have ever been told that women had no power in ancient India, this conversation is your answer. Preetha Leela Chockalingam, lecturer, author and storyteller, sits down with Sangeeta Relan to talk about a Kerala that most of us were never taught about in school. A Kerala where women inherited property, led households and shaped kingdoms. Where different faiths coexisted not out of compulsion but out of wisdom. A Kerala that history quietly erased. Through her Girls of India series published by Penguin Random House, Preetha is bringing these women back, one girl at a time.

THE STORY

Preetha Leela Chockalingam did not set out to become a keeper of forgotten histories. She set out to survive stormy evenings. Growing up in a household where her parents fought often, she and her sister turned to storytelling as a way out. Her sister told stories about doctors. Preetha told stories about somewhere else entirely. Somewhere with books and laughter and peace.

Decades later, Preetha is a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, a writer of historical fiction and the author of two books in the acclaimed Girls of India series: A Chera Adventure and her latest, A Pallava Adventure, both published by Penguin Random House. She is also, as she puts it herself, a keeper of stories.

What she is keeping, specifically, are the stories of women in ancient Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Women who had agency. Women who inherited. Women who led. Women whom history, first through colonialism and then through collective forgetting, has done its best to erase.

Art, literature, theatre, film, music. These are the keepers of stories.

Preetha Leela Chockalingam

The History They Did Not Teach You

Most people, even those from neighboring states, have no idea that much of Kerala was matrilineal for centuries. Women held property rights, led families and were central to how society was organised. This was not a small pocket of progressive thinking. It was the norm, sustained right up until British colonialism systematically dismantled it through ridicule and demeaning campaigns, stopping just short of an outright ban.

The Cheras, the ancient ruling dynasty of Kerala, built something even more remarkable. A kingdom where trade brought different cultures to the shore and tolerance became policy. Merchants from Yemen to parts of Europe made their home in Kerala. The king and the royal family protected their right to worship freely. Religious clashes happened, says Preetha, but they were minor compared to the rest of India. What prevailed was a culture of live and let be.

Why has this story stayed so invisible? Preetha has a simple answer. Kerala, she says, has always been slightly understated. Even its tourism campaigns are subtle. It is not a state that goes out to promote its own past. And so the past quietly faded.

People are not aware that much of Kerala was matrilineal in ancient India. And this carried on quite until colonialism.

Preetha Leela Chockalingam

The Girls Who Carry the Story

Preetha’s two books are part of Penguin Random House’s Girls of India series, a collection that tells India’s ancient history through the eyes of young girls. It is a format Preetha has embraced wholeheartedly, because it is exactly the lens she believes is missing from how we teach children about the past.

In A Chera Adventure, there is Sharadha. She was born from a flash of imagination. Preetha pictured a girl with big eyes wearing her hair to the side in a Kerala outfit and the story followed. The big eyes, she admits with a laugh, came from her daughter.

In A Pallava Adventure, there is Pallavi. Set in 7th century Mamallapuram, Pallavi uses poetry as her weapon in a world that is trying to take her education and her voice from her. The story, Preetha says, is very urgent and very relevant. That is the sad thing. Girls are still so repressed. Young girls in Afghanistan are not allowed to go to school. Children in refugee situations go months without education. The Pallava adventure is set 1,400 years ago. And yet.

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Preetha does not feel like she chooses her characters. She feels chosen. As she puts it, the girls took the story out of my hands. Sharadha and Pallavi chose me as a vehicle to tell their stories.

“Don’t look for validation. Just tell the story. You can edit it afterwards.”

Preetha Leela Chockalingam

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Women’s history has been deliberately erased. Much of Kerala was matrilineal for centuries. Women held property rights and social standing. This was systematically dismantled by British colonialism, not by Indian society itself.

The Cheras were ahead of their time. Trade brought tolerance. The Chera kingdom welcomed merchants from across the world, protected their right to worship and built a culture of religious harmony that modern India is still striving toward.

Stories are the most powerful archive we have. Official history records conquests and dates. Art, literature, film and music record how people actually lived. Writers of historical fiction carry a responsibility to get it right and make it memorable.

Write first. Seek validation never. Preetha’s advice to young writers, especially women, is clear. Write without asking for permission. The people who criticise your work early may be doing so from their own insecurity, not from your lack of ability.

Girls’ voices belong at the centre of history. The Girls of India series is not just charming children’s fiction. It is a deliberate act of recentering. History told through the eyes of a girl is history most of us have never been given.

Not just about her. It takes all of us.