Anita Krishan has carved a niche for herself in the world of storytelling. The author of the bestselling short story collection, Ghosts of the Silent Hills, has crafted widely popular books such as Despite Stolen Dreams, Tears of Jhelum, and Fluffy and Me.
At a session of An Author’s Afternoon, organised by Prabha Khaitan Foundation, Krishnan discussed her most recent book, Ghosts in the Dark Silence, while enthralling the audience with stories of the supernatural. She was in conversation with Nazia Yusuf Izuddin, Ehsaas Woman of Kochi; Esha Dutta, Ehsaas Woman of Kolkata and the Foundation’s Honorary Convenor of North-East Affairs, delivered the formal welcome note and introduced the author and the moderator to the audience.
What led Krishan to take up writing as a profession after 25 years as a teacher? It was, Krishan pointed out, her profound love for the mountains. Elaborating on this, Krishan noted that she used to live in a “quaint little cottage in Shimla surrounded by pine and oak trees in the hills,” which was where she first got acquainted with the romance and magic of horror stories. “In my childhood, Shimla had a lot of snowfall, and that would cause the overhead electricity wires to snap and the pipes bringing water to freeze. We used to live without water and electricity for days together. During those evenings, we used to sit around the fireplace and exchange ghost stories. I remembered the excitement that I felt during those evenings for a long time,” she added.
But choosing to be a writer was a decision that she made after her children grew up and her longing for the mountains overpowered any other considerations. Fluffy and Me was the result of this love that she had for the mountains. “I grew up in the mountains of Shimla. But after I got married, I had to settle down in the plains. In my excitement, I never realised that I was never to return to the mountains again. I came to visit from time to time, but I never stayed. The nostalgia for the mountains lingered with me, but I was too busy as a wife and mother to pay any attention to it,” remarked Krishan.
This was also the point at which she realised that writing was her calling. Witnessing the 2005 Delhi explosion, though, strengthened her notion that being a writer was definitely her destiny. “On 29 October 2005 (two days before Diwali), my husband and I were in Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar, shopping for Diwali, when a bomb exploded just 10 metres away from us. We were fortunate to have been saved, but afterwards learnt that 37 people had been killed in that one bomb strike. I had escaped that day since there were so many people in front of us. I’ve seen that nothing is in our hands, and destiny keeps leading us through the twists and turns of life,” explained the author.
For Krishan, the purpose of writing ghost stories was not just to bring alive the memories of her childhood, but also to convey the idea that spirits are immortal. “The spirit is indestructible and continues living through the cycles of birth and rebirth,” shared Krishan. “As long Telling Tales of the Anita Krishan Nazia Yusuf Izuddin Supernatural as we are in this life, we have to do our best so that we are rewarded in the next life. My books are based on true experiences that people have had, and though the existence of the spirit is unknown, I believe that it’s a possibility.”
To that effect, she shared stories of real-life encounters that her aunt, uncle and nieces had with the paranormal which kept the audience on the edge of their seats. She also added how her nieces’ experience with the supernatural led them to take up past life regression therapy professionally.
“There are three kinds of ‘believers’ when it comes to ghosts: first are the sceptics, who do not believe at all; second are the ones like me, who are confused, who haven’t had any direct experience with ghosts but have heard real-life stories; and third are people who have direct encounters and know for sure,” she concluded.
The session was followed by an interactive Q&A round with the audience. The vote of thanks was delivered by Dutta, and Anindita Chatterjee, Executive Trustee of the Foundation, felicitated the author with a dokra memento.