Agniva Pal Talks About His Book “Catharsis with Maa”

About the Author:

Agniva is an assistant professor and teaches the subject he loves, linguistics. However, he also loves storytelling. He loves to share his views and in his own quirky style of storytelling, he loves discerning the intricacies of the world.

Exclusive interview with the author

Q: Can You Tell Me About The Book?

A: Everyone has questions about life and death, specially about death. I couldnt meet Maa when she breathed her last and given a chance I would never want to see her like that. I bottled up all my feelings and over a time period of over 8 months, splattered them on the pages of this book. When she died, I thought my life was over. This is a journey of life and eventual death from the point of giving up in life to giving up on hopelessness and clinging on to hope.

Q: Where Do You Get Your Information Or Ideas For Your Books?

A: Since my childhood, I have been encouraged to read as many books as possible and books from varied disciplines and genres. Then followed my adult life where I started extensively training myself in linguistics. I think, the amalgamation of varied disciplines of knowledge and then the sudden death of Maa, led me to question things, traditions, certain rituals and life and death in general. This book is an outlet; an outlet for my intense feelings and yearnings which had no outlets.

Q: Where Do You Get Your Greatest Ideas For Writing?

A: Life, death, dreams and aspirations, language, astronomy and physics, relations and their convolutions and anything else I see around me in general, can be inspirations for me to write.

Q: How Important Is Research To You When Writing A Book?

Extremely important. You are publishing because you want readers to read it. You better be ready to fact check and then go ahead, write about it. One wrong thing and a whole set of readers would learn something wrong. As a teacher and a researcher, that is something, that must not be done.

Q: Do You Try More To Be Original Or To Deliver To Readers What They Want?

A: I honestly do not think anybody else mattered when I started writing. I lost my Maa and I was shattered. All I wanted was to preserve every memory of her, her smell, her smile, her voice, her eyes, her hugs and everything. Every line, is original. Every thought is mine and hers. I am sure, everyone comes across death, in life; separation from death as well and this book is probably the first step into being hopeful again. I wrote this book because I wanted my readers and the world to know about Maa; the person who made me who I am today.