When Anandajit Goswami watched the Amitabh Bachchan-Taapsee Pannu movie Pink , he found the title for a story he had written. He recalls, “I thought of the politics of the word ‘pink.’ Society’s imposition of everything as binary is a source of problem as we are all multi-polar at the end of the day.”
His book Pink Gender that released in 2019, was a short story with different characters and mysteries. These mysteries unfold in its recently-released sequel Pink Gender: The Extended. Though the story, characters and the background are the same, the sequel goes deeper to explain reasons for the characters’ behaviour in the first book.
The plot revolves around a man, woman and a transgender (who is a dream) who are summoned to a police station for a mysterious accident. Their stories and mysteries unfold in the counselling room of the police station.
ADVERTISEMENT
Metaphor of mind
Academician Anandajit uses the counselling room as a metaphor to dwell deep into the dark corners of human mind and psychology. The sequel is a journey into a psychological space of sexuality and gender orientation. The book, he admits, is a kind of psychotherapy session where each character relives themselves by sharing memories.
ADVERTISEMENT
He reveals, “There is nothing wrong or right in the character. It is just how events have taken a psychological orientation in their lives and why they behaved in a certain way. They share memories of their sexuality, gender constraints, torn relationships and social depictions and how they responded and are trying to get out.” In a way Pink Gender: The Extended is his own journey of 39 years filled with observations, experiences and memories of people he has met.
Science book for children
His debut book Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability , a science fiction book for children, was also followed by a sequel Lucy Meets Artificial Intelligence, co-authored with Debashish Chakraborty. “I wrote Lucy’s first story on a dystopic future in 2009 but was rejected by many who thought I was hallucinating. But in 2015 two publishers found something unique in it and the book released; so you can understand my writer’s journey,” he says wryly.
Anandajit’s books are his ‘healing sessions’ where he writes with a sense of honesty. He does admit they take a lot of time. “I don’t believe in producing one book after another as I am more interested in people discussing issues mentioned in my book.” He also spends long time on research; he spent five years studying gender theories before writing Pink Gender. “If you don’t read the academic discourse, you won’t be able to fictionalise it. I feel a a sense of completion when I fictionalise as I have understood the jargon and able to tell a story easily. ”
Anandajit is also a musician and his music for sustainability-related tracks are popular on his channel in Soundcloud.
He has just started work on his dream project dealing with identity conflict, mythology, human history and a controversial forgotten history.
(Pink Gender: The Extended; Bigfoot Publications; ₹ 200. Kindle versions are also available)