INTERVIEW

Sinjini Sengupta is an erstwhile actuary whose debut novel, Elixir, published in December last year, has won numerous national and international awards. The narrative delves into philosophical questions of life, as well as issues that more immediately concern our world, like women’s emancipation.

Elixir’s draft was used for an immensely popular short film of the same name after which Sengupta authored the book in its final form. She is also a successful columnist, a TEDx speaker and has participated in global conferences as keynote speaker and panellist to speak on various socially-relevant topics. Q. Tell us about your novel, Elixir. Why did you choose this story particular story as the foundation of your first novel? A. Elixir is a story told in a somewhat layered narrative. On the face of it, it is the story of a modern urban marriage— a man and a woman in their 30s with the usual trysts and the usual rush that our everyday lifestyle entails, the boons and banes of the emotional solitude that is commonplace. It also reflects upon the gender politics and the social dynamics of the contemporary world. However, on another plane, it is also the story of the complexities of our minds, the conscious and the subconscious spaces inside it, of dreams and alternate realities, the truth or futility of which we cannot claim with any known assurance. We only know that much of how our mind functions, don’t we? Elixir opens with a quote from Edgar Allen Poe, which goes: “All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.” Our very lives, our reality as we perceive it, could also well be a false awakening, a state of illusion, a waking dream. The story of Elixir is much about that, that greyness of life, human vulnerabilities and complexity of inter-personal relationships. Q. How did the idea of parallel realities, upon which the novel’s story is based,