Tashan Mehta
Magical Women
In an island that floats at the beginning of time, there is a Rulebook for Creating a Universe. This book is old, with instructions on how to make forever worlds.
– 'Rulebook for Creating a Universe'
A short story featured in Magical Women
A compelling collection of stories that speak of love, rage, rebellion, choices and chances, Magical Women is an anthology of feminist Indian speculative literature that brings together some of the strongest female voices in contemporary Indian writing. Edited by Sukanya Venkatraghavan.
Praise for Magical Women
A similarly dreamy story is Tashan Mehta’s Rulebook for Creating the Universe, set on an “island that floats at the beginning of time”. [...] It is a velvety origin story told through a sequence of events that left stars in my eyes for quite some time.
– The Wire
Tashan Mehta's story has left me with a painful need for The Liar's Weave. A great collection.
– KJ Charles, author of THE MAGPIE LORD
The theme of women, speaking, listening, creating continues in Tashan Mehta’s “Rulebook for creating a universe”, outright the most beautiful narrative in this collection.
– Kaani Literary Magazine
If this Magical Women anthology is anything to go by, and as things stand, one can see no better platform through which [new female] stories can be told — no longer held hostage by old narratives...
– Factor Daily