A whole new world

Indian speculative fiction aka SF or specfic is having a moment with authors imagining strange new worlds and taking readers where no human has gone before The genre which has many fans in the West has slowly been gathering steam in the last decade in India And is coloured in with uniquely Indian themes such as overturning caste structuresWhile there has been a rich tradition of SF in regional languages like Tamil and Bengali there is now a new wave of desi specfic in English In recent years several Indian authors have also found international recognition with nominations for prestigious SF awards including the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction as well as the Hugo and Nebula awards for scifi and fantasy fiction Writing SF can also be lucrativemdashNetflix has adapted Prayaag Akbarrsquos novel Leila into an eponymous seriesBut what is speculative fiction A wide genre that encompasses science fiction such as Isaac Asimovrsquos Foundation series or dystopian tales such as Margaret Atwoodrsquos The Handmaidrsquos tale as well as the now hugely popular fantasy category think The Song of Ice and Fire and The Witcher At first glance these works may not seem to have much in common but one central question ties them together What ifA still from hit TV series Game of Thrones which is said to have led to an explosion in the interest for speculative fiction in IndiaThis is how all SF writers begin questioning everything about the way our world functions And reimagining even one element can build a universe anewTake Gigi Ganguly who thought What if clouds were sentient beings forced into producing rain at the beck and call of cloudseeding corporations This is the premise of the opening story in her short fiction collection Biopeculiar Stories of An Uncertain World which is centred on climate change and our relationship with the environmentReleased in April Biopeculiar is the very first book to be published under Westland Booksrsquos new imprint dedicated to specfic IF Although there are quite a few Indian SF authorsmdashSamit Basu Indra Das and Tashan Mehta being a fewmdashthere was no dedicated space for the genre before says GangulyldquoIt is still quite niche in Indiardquo says the Noidabased author adding ldquoMy hope is that readers stumble upon an SF book and discover the many worlds within There has been a greater push for it in India in the last few years and it helps that Indian writers are also getting nominated for prestigious awards Worldwide SF is dominated by Western voices so there is a fresh perspective we can offerrdquoR T Samuel coeditor of Blaftrsquos anthologyWestland Books has also invited submissions for a new SF anthology Publisher Karthika VK says the goal is to not only encourage more Indian writers but also build an imprint that becomes a goto for readers who enter a bookstore looking for SF Interest in fantasy and speculative fiction blew up after series like the Game of Thrones based on George RR Martinrsquos A Song of Ice and Fire aired on TV says Karthika adding ldquoPeople are talking about Shogun a TV series based on the eponymous 1975 novel by James Clavell Therersquos a lot more excitement around the genrerdquoThe IF anthology is to be edited by constitutional lawyer and SF writer Gautam Bhatia who is known for his SF duology comprising The Wall and its sequel The Horizon The books are set in a city encircled by a high wall that no one in living memory has crossed His third book The Sentence Westland Books comes in October ldquoIt combines my work as a lawyer and as a scifi writer Itrsquos set in a city that cryofreezes convicts for 100 years instead of the death penalty giving them a chance to be revived if proved innocent Itrsquos crime and punishment through the lens of scifirdquo says Bhatia who also coedits the SF magazine Strange HorizonsDystopian SF can eerily foreshadow the real world much like Lavanya Lakshminarayanrsquos debut novel AnalogVirtual which was released just weeks before the COVID19 outbreak The book is set in an alternative Bengaluru in which virtual elites live in technologyenabled comfort while the Analogs live without access to tech or even electricity and water This divide was stark during the pandemic when those with technology were able to order conveniences from home while others lined up for groceries Lakshminarayanrsquos book is shortlisted for the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award She is one of only two Indian writers to make it to this list the other being Amitav Ghosh who won it in 1997 for Calcutta ChromosomeBlaft Publicationsrsquo anticaste SF anthology features futuristic cover art by Bahujan artist Priyanka PaulMimi Mondal was the first Indian to be nominated for the 2020 Nebula Award for her novelette His Footsteps Through Darkness and Light The awardwinning Dalit authorrsquos work will also feature in Blaft Publicationsrsquo anticaste SF anthology expected to release in December Creating an anthology of anticaste specfic was an obvious choice for coeditor R Talitha Samuel Though SF has a long history in India the perspectives were mostly of savarna authors Anticaste fiction tends to be realist and focused on strifeldquoI have been reading specfic since I was in high schoolrdquo he says ldquoAs a political science major I didnrsquot understand why we didnrsquot have more anticaste SF when India is inherently political The fact that this has not happened yet is chilling How else would you think and talk about different possibilities when it comes to caste Instead SF in India has mostly been retellings of mythologyrdquoEditors of the anthologymdashSamuel Blaft publisher Rakesh Khanna and Rashmi RDmdashwere sure that writers already had these ideas but perhaps no one had thought to compile them ldquoWe looked for emerging authors with the potential to reimagine something really coolhelliplike what if someone disenfranchised in this world is in power in an alternate universerdquo says SamuelPayal Kapadia author Gautam Bhatia and Gigi GangulyThe anthology features a mix of established authors in Indian languages such as Dalit icon Bama Faustina Soosairaj Tamil Gautamiputra Kamble Marathi Gogu Shyamala Telugu as well as firsttime writers ldquoWe have robots alternative histories futurist tales and horror stories Therersquos even a horror story written in the form of Reddit threads These are wrapped in futuristic cover art by Bahujan artist Priyanka Paulrdquo says SamuelFor Crossword Award winning author Payal Kapadia a former journalist the freedom to reimagine the world is what she loves most ldquoI enjoy making stories uprdquo she says ldquobut even in specfic there are unbreakable rules That was a big learning The world may be impossible but it must be plausible Sometimes you get carried away and want to break the laws you have established for your world but yoursquod lose the readerrsquos trust and the story falls apartrdquoIn her latest book Woebegonersquos Warehouse of Words this Nepean Sea Road resident creates a world where you have to buy words to use them These words are living beings made of flesh and ink ldquoAs I wrote this book I began to see the parallels with the world we live in Tyrants have become more sophisticated If I have to silence you I donrsquot have to cut off your tongue I just have to take away your words You can rule very effectively by controlling what stories people hear If a lie is told repeatedly it starts sounding like the truthrdquo