title: In pandas/python, reading array stored as string
body: <p>I have a pandas dataframe where one of the columns has array of strings as each element.</p>
  
  <p>So something like this. </p>
  
  <pre><code>  col1 col2
  0 120  ['abc', 'def']
  1 130  ['ghi', 'klm']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now when i store this to csv using to_csv it seems fine.
  When i read it back using from_csv i seems to read back. 
  But then when i analyse the value in each cell the array is </p>
  
  <p>'[' ''' 'a' 'b' 'c' and so on. 
  So essentially its not reading it as an array but a set of strings. Can somebody suggest how I can convert this string into an array?</p>
  
  <p>I mean to say the array has been stored like a string</p>
  
  <pre><code>'[\'abc\',\'def\']'
  </code></pre>