Arindam and the Kalyug Debacle Premonition, the debut novel by Rohit Prakash delves into the fantastical world of Arindam, the protagonist, bullied by his brother and packed off to a boarding school by his parents, who lands himself in a mysterious world. He is entrusted with the mission to save the ‘the third world’, ‘the real world’ and ‘the land of the unknown’. We find out what the young author who launched his book at Oxford Bookstore has to say about his world of fantasy.This is your debut novel. What made you come up with a fantasy fiction, a genre that is not experimented much in India?One day, I was strolling with my friend and we started talking about JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. I thought that someone in India should write a fantasy fiction about our mythology too. Later, I came up with the gist on my own and finally I decided to write. Do you think people in India have opened up to the world of fantasy after Harry Potter?As far as I can see, Harry Potter is a wonderful story. In India, people are open to Harry Potter and other Western creations. But when it comes to Indian creation, it’s only Amar Chitra Katha that fuels fantasy. People haven’t had the chance to read an actual Indian fantasy novel. So feedback is something that I’m looking forward to.How much of your book is imagination and how much is mythology?I would say, 70 per cent imagination and 30 per cent mythology. One of the challenges while writing a fantasy story is to make the characters and story sound believable. But did that thought limit your imagination?There was always the thought that the book had to make sense. I’ve used true scientific concepts while writing about the real world. In the book, I’ve written about the black hole. So I found out what would happed to earth if it approaches a black hole. In the unknown world, I’ve made sure that the mythological creatures are made believable. If you were to go back to a particular era, which one would you pick and why?I think I would like to go back to the Sathyayuga. It was an honest era – a perfect place for people to live. But even today, in the Kalyug, we can incorporate the traits from the Sathyayuga, making it the best combination.So, after the Kalyug, it will be the ‘end’ Mythology says that destruction will take place. But my book says that it’s a premonition that things will end. If the third world is set right, then the world will be set into an age of peace.Is that what you believe too, or is that what your book says?Yes. I believe it is possible. I believe that we can go back to the good old days of honesty. We just believe in annihilation now. We also just take the bad traits from the West, not the good ones. We are sinking into a world where teens and adults are losing their values. The world is also moving to a technological chaos.But you are a software engineer. Does your profession conflict with this theory?To some extend, yes. In life you have to take the path that is risk free. At the same time, you also look at a second profession, where you can escape from the world. So writing fantasy is as much an escapism as reading it Yes. A writer creates a new world and that is definitely a means of escapism.Any new book in the making?I was waiting for this one to be released. Now that it is done, I have to complete my masters. That takes up a lot of time. But if people like what I have written, then I wouldn’t mind writing a sequel. Other than that, I would also like to work on other genres.
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