“A man is about what choices
he makes. It falls upon that person to decide what is actually true or false.
It is then a person’s true character that comes out.”
It
is in the world of fantasy that a person often finds solace, which he escapes
to, a world which he can connect to, a world which is surreal but the
characters often are a reflection of people with myriad personalities
surrounding us. In his depiction of a the surreal meets real world, 26 year old
author Arka Chakrabarti believes that even a world of fantasy has a realm of
reality which is portrayed in his maiden novel. ‘The Secrets Of The Dark’-The
Saga of Agni. It was released in 2013, with a sequel to release in September
this year. Says Arka Chakrabarti, “Even in
science fiction like Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’, the concept
of submarines were not prominent until much later. You mould real life concepts
and put life around it. I wanted freedom to write about characters facing
life’s struggles who are similar to us yet in a different place.”
‘The
Secrets Of The Dark’ takes you on a journey through the mystical world of Gaya
recreated through the author’s eyes, where the story of Agni weaves out not
just a mystery that traces his past and true origin, but also brings out
interesting perceptions of characters that make up the complexity of life.
Whether it is a mythical fiction of Gaya where the Destroyer, born from the
royal seed on the Land of the Setting Sun, brings the empires down or the enchanting
world of the past spoken in the colloquial language of today-the book grips the
reader who wants to discover more as he turns the pages. The main protagonist
is strong willed Agni, brought up in the care of King Adhirath of Himadri,
along with Prince Yani and his friend Vrish. Agni is forced to find out the
truth behind his past, when he looses his fiancé Malini, Vrish’s sister who
dies in a fire that grips the shores of the trading destination Himadri. Malini
was his hope of a new life which was taken away from him and Agni won’t rest
till he finds out the truth behind what started the fire that took her life,
but the story goes beyond the present, that Agni lives in. It is a story of a
man leading a normal life which makes the reader want to bracket him as a
superhero in the fantasy world of ‘The Secrets of The Dark’. The twists and
turns uncover the tales in the mythical land of Gaya, meandering through the
land of the rising sun and the land of the setting sun and how the two worlds
are intertwined for the reader to discover the Saga of Agni.
Chakrabarti
was 18 when he penned down the world of fantasy created in his mind. But it was
not until recently that he decided to compile it into a novel, which was
published by Shristi publishers after getting rejected by almost five others. Many
said the genre would not sell. But today a book like Amish’s ‘The Immortals of
Meluha’ has not just sold an unimaginable number of copies, but also reinforced
the belief that mythical fictions are here to stay, offering the reader
something new. A slice of history laced with fiction amalgamates into a realm
of fantasy that takes the reader to a forgotten land, one that we vaguely
remember reading in history books.
Rejections
from publishers did not stop Chakrabarti from pursuing his mission to transform
his manuscript into a novel after his family and friends gave him the courage
to do so after reading and liking his work. “My work is about normal people
leading a normal life which is what they liked. That gave me the courage to
approach publishers.” Reminisces Chabrabarti. The story had a strong
undercurrent of Sanskrit which has to be reworked to put the novel in it’s
present form.
He
continues, “If you look closely, fire possess two extreme qualities,
destruction and taking man to new levels of innovation. Man is like fire, who
has the capability of doing good and bad. This is the core that I wanted to establish
in Agni. It is the choices of man that make a man. There is a thin line bet
right and wrong and sometimes it gets blurred. It leaves one in a predicament.”
An
consulting accountant by profession, he continues to follow his passion to
write. It was an accident that made fire an intriguing subject for Charabarti,
when he suffered second degree burns on his right hand. The fear of fire still
grips him, but it is the intrigue in one of the four elements of life that took
his imagination to different dimensions. He gave up an offer at the Income Tax
Department in Mumbai, to live his dream of writing while being a consultant. “When
I got that offer, I was happy with my career. There are certain
responsibilities when shifting base. Both writing and working provides me well
and gives me a sense of fulfillment, when I have that, I don’t need to run
behind anything else. I already have fulfillment and stability.”
Staying
back in Kolkata has given him a sense of pride, coming from a land that gave
the rest of the world the wonders of Satyajit Ray’s works. Chakrabarti feels he
not done something different as such with his novel, but instead chooses to put
it as showing readers other possibilities that exist and characters from another
time and space which sometimes are alike people we encounter in this day and
age.
There
is a land of the rising sun and the land of the setting sun to read, layers of
characters’ personalities to unpeel and to connect the dots to uncover The Saga
of Agni which has overall gotten a positive response. The journey does not just
end here. Come September, the 26 year old Kolkata based author continues the
realm of his imagination in the sequel of ‘The Secrets Of the Dark’ while he
continues to keep afloat on readers’ growing interests in The Saga of Agni.
