"Ambai is the nom de plume of Dr C.S. Lakshmi, a historian and a creative writer in Tamil who writes about love, relationships, quests and journeys in the Tamil region and elsewhere. Her stories have been translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom in two volumes entitled A Purple Sea and In a Forest, a Deer. Ambai was awarded the Lifetime Literary Achievement Award of Tamil Literary Garden, University of Toronto, Canada, for the year 2008. An independent researcher in Women's Studies for the last thirty-five years, Ambai is the author of several critical books and articles. She is currently the Director of SPARROW (Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women). "