She wields the pen at her own sweet will. Both as an imaginative author as well as an opinionated columnist. Also an ad consultant in her own right, this Kolkata based multi-tasker often scribbles lines that rhyme with reasons. She’s Anjana Basu whose middle name could easily be tireless. In fact, a collection of her poems has already been featured in an anthology published by Penguin India and of late, by Authorpress. Across the Atlantic too, her columns have claimed newsprints into several leading and reputed journals. Besides, her riveting short stories have appeared in a clutch of international dailies. But “I’m a spontaneous writer,” she insists. Adding further, she firmly maintains: “I don’t succumb to the pressures of a taut deadline. Whenever, thoughts start trickling in and bear the shape of either a story, or a novel or a poem, I let my fingers do the rest. The format might differ depending on the kind of virus the idea carries and how fast it multiplies. However, my hand moves at a leisurely pace, as am more of a relaxed writer and love to think at peace.” Quiz her on the inspirational things that hover around her to tickle her conscience as a writer, pat comes her candid quip: “Nothing in particular really. Even smelling a cool, breezy weather can inject my blood with a probable plot for a novella or a crisp tale or two, every now and then.” “Look the mind remains a white sheet of canvas till the creative sparks fly off. As soon as the eyes spot a speck of something significantly provocative, the paleness disappears only to be replaced by a palette of colourful contents. It’s like brewing the coffee-beans or fermenting the wine for a stimulating drink,” she elucidates her point. Recently, the Gyaana Books publication launched her latest fiction title — Rhythms of Darkness, a sequel to her earlier bestseller Black Tongue. Rhythms of Darkness opens with a poignant story of a poor village girl whose name means darkness. Hailing from the backwaters of Bengal, the female protagonist gets swept up into the arms of a man, who stood as a remarkable symbol of revolution for her. A nubile, young normal girl — too dark to be considered marriageable into a caste-ridden and superstitious society and even darker to dance in plain sight — but certainly not dark enough to provide a camouflaging cover for those militant forces, snaking their way into infiltrating the villages and working against the ruling government. Her dancing-politics catapults her to the top echelons of Bengali power structure, and then into a self-imposed exile. “There is a notable displacement of a native rural belle from her earthy roots and the shift is permanent here. The central character migrates from her village to a large cosmopolitan city, leaving behind all her rustic, raw ways only to embrace the big, civilised world of urbanisation, where life is lived at a breakneck speed, relationships become fragile, dreams are shattered at regular intervals, promises are made to be broken, struggles scripted amidst cut-throat competitions, constant foulplays are on to reach one’s goals and ambitions attained through corrupt means and abused power,” reveals the award-winning author, a recipient of the prestigious Hawthornden Fellowship at Scotland in 2004. When probed if she had any real-life politico’s image in her sub-consciousness while composing the first draft of the story, to this, she shoots back: “Can you name any dancer-turned-politician who waltzed her way into political circles only to reign as a party supremo or assume a ministerial portfolio ” After a pause, she adds with an afterthought: “Yes, we have witnessed a lot of social activists, revolutionary leaders, crusaders for noble causes and messiah of the masses to don a political hue or be at the centrestage of forming and running a government, yet when I wrote this saga, I had no specific person in my mind to model my story on or someone capable of representing the indigent grass-root electorate. Except the fact that in the story, every other minor character or a second lead calls her didi.” Possibly, critics won’t oversee this tongue-in-cheek humour lying in the addressal form. Some already say that the timing of the book release is just perfect as the state of Poshchim Banga has been able to steer a poribartan (change) on its political map, that it so desperately prayed and waited for. The tome explicitly explores and focuses on Bengal’s politics and turbulent times.
