Science fiction in India needs a push. With publishers not venturing into its publication and authors ignoring the subject, a desi sci-fi novel is something we’ve all been waiting for. Sanjay Koppikar’s book, Divided Minds is the harbinger of good news for sci-fi fans in India. Addressing nanotechnology and creating characters that are as intelligent as they are emotional, Divided Minds sets itself apart from the books currently on Indian shelves. Excerpts from an interview with Sanjay Koppikar
How did the idea of Divided Minds strike you?
I am basically a storyteller. Even in my job I do the same thing. I run a software company, I create technology stories that solve some problem, and send it to the customers. Then a few years ago I started saying no, I should not just be stuck with work. I should try and do something different so I started drawing. I travel a lot. I would sit at the airport and look at people’s faces, and sketch them. I also started making up stories to keep myself busy in ways other than work. I had this story in June, 2011. To finally get it to reality took five years. I had to do a lot of research. The story is about nanotechnology that is to be injected into the bloodstream. To make this story believable I had to study a little bit about that to realise that there are people already working on those lines.
What kind of research did you have to undertake to write the novel?
Of course nanotechnology. I belong to technology so I was able to get to that part of it. Initially in the first version I went into quite a bit of detail. It actually worked out to be a detailed technology write-up rather than a novel because I had to convince myself that the technology was possible in the near future. Simple things -- if you put an electronic chip into your bloodstream will that be acceptable to the bloodstream? It won’t be; so how will it react? Or how is it going to charge itself? You can’t think of putting a battery inside and replacing it. There were all these kinds of questions. Then there was the medical part of it. I spoke to at least six to seven doctors and kept picking their brains for information.
Did you face any challenges while writing the novel?
Time was a challenge. The story was exciting for me but I didn’t know whether it was going to be exciting for people.
So, I started dumbing down the entire piece on technology as such. Not in a derogatory manner, but I thought anybody should be able to pick it up, read it and enjoy the story while getting the science and technology behind it. Today the biggest challenge in India especially is that there are so many romantic comedies that are published thanks to you know who.
The language is becoming very casual in our literature. Science fiction is very rare in India. I tried to look for Indian science fiction, I had difficulties in finding them. But classically, even in mythology, science was always present.
How did Delhi become the centre of activity in the book?
None of the places I have mentioned in the book I’ve ever been to. If you have followed the news, the story happened because of some different incidents knit together.
One of them is when General V.K. Singh was heading the Army -- there was some news about the Army moving towards Delhi and later on there was a lot of denial and they said it was a general exercise. So, why did they move?
There is another story where a particular inspector took his family to a restaurant, had dinner and shot himself. These stories were eating me up -- what must be going on in his head when he did that? A lot of people commit suicide but this is not the way to go about it. These people then became characters in my book. If at all I had to show the power that this phenomenon will bring about, it had to be set in the Capital.
