Ten Yakshi Facts by author Neelima Vinod

Hey guys!

Today we have with us Neelima. She's a writer from Bangalore and her novella Unsettled has been published by Indireads, a publishing company based out of Toronto. She's going to be sharing her ten yakshi facts with us. Let's get to it!

Summary-

The hundred-room house is a rich tapestry of memories and hidden secrets, a dark, forbidding place, rumoured to be haunted by a vengeful Yakshi. Propelled by a desire to save their marriage, Divya and Raghav journey to the haunted mansion in search of the mythical Scrolls of Love.

Written five hundred years ago by the banished court poet Shankara, they are fabled to have the power to heal and reignite lost love. Is this just a legend, or are the couple heading towards a chilling destiny?

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Ten Yakshi facts

I’m sure many of you have heard of the Yakshi. She’s the lady in white, the femme fatale of South Asia, the blood sucking vampire of the South. My ebook Unsettled published by Indireads is a story that combines the mythical with romance.

1. The first successful Yakshi novel that was written and adapted as a movie  is the Malayalam novel titled Yakshi by the amazingly competent Malayatoor Ramakrishnan.

2. A yakshi is a female earth spirit.

3.She's a fertility symbol by the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain faiths. She is so fertile that she can make a tree bear fruit by sheer contact.

4.She is extremely desirable- quite a catch as far as female vampires go.

5.You might have seen sculptures of this wonderful woman playing balancing acts on stupas or temple walls.

6.Yakshis do not have a spine- in fact they are ‘back less’. Their long ebony hair hides that reality.

7.Yakshis hover. They don't touch the ground.

8.Yakshis were maternal figures at one point, but somewhere down the line they have become immensely bad- tempered. They shriek and deliver powerful curses, giving a very Indian touch to the universal concept of female hysteria.

9.Yakshis are shape shifters- the seductress slides down the palm tree and  woos the male walker through woods. She asks him if he has a betel leaf and if he does, they become lovers. The next morning nothing is left of the man but a pile of bone, a clump of hair and teeth. Apparently the yakshi devours her prey- isn’t this a fantastic inversion of desire?  She’s  a blood thirsty vampire, her beauty a mask  she throws off at will.

10.There has never been an ebook about a Yakshi until Unsettled....

About the author:

Neelima Vinod spent her childhood in the Persian Gulf, with holidays in the warm, dreamy climes of southern India. Writing about the supernatural is an inevitable outcome of her exotic background. She has acquired her M.Phil in English literature and worked as editor, teacher and writer. She now lives in Bangalore, India. Her current obsessions are her twin sons, the books on her shelf and off it, and her poetry blog.

You can read her poetry athttp://neelthemuse.wordpress.com, join her writing group at facebook called All Things Writing and follow her on Facebook facebook.com/neelimavinodauthor

You can check out and read an excerpt of Unsettled here.

Thank you so much Neelima!

Happy reading :)