|
Isn’t it funny how we spend our lives looking for something only to realize it has been with us all along?
Growing up in India in the 80s, my childhood reading interests ranged from western children’s adventures and teen sleuth mysteries (Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators) to Indian literature, including animal fables (Jataka Tales and Panchatantra) and stories based on the Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata.
My knowledge of the latter came through a wildly popular series of comics, titled Amar Chitra Katha, whose founder, Anant Pai, was reportedly shocked to discover in the 60s that Indian children were well-versed in Greek and Roman mythology but couldn’t answer questions pertaining to Indian epics in a quiz that aired on national TV.
As a child, I devoured these comic books but kept my feet firmly grounded in reality. No god would come to my rescue if I forgot to do my homework!
The first time I really lamented the absence of magic in real life was when I finished reading the first Harry Potter book at university. I turned the last page and promptly set about crafting a feather-shaped cut-out bearing the words Wingardium Leviosa, desperate to somehow hold on to that breathtaking magic in real life.
Then I fell in love and got married, and that hunger for something otherworldly was sated. Temporarily.
Until I read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Anansi Boys, and could no longer walk down the streets without wondering if, even hoping that, some supernatural being would leap out at me around the next corner, consequences be damned.
Then Erin Morgenstern burst onto the scene with her flax-golden tales, weaving stories of fantasy and whimsy paired with photographs of ordinary life. Magic once again erupted into everyday life and I devoured her weekly offerings like a hungry ghost.
Later, when I moved to North America, I spent a considerable amount of time seeking that magic in its suburbs. In vain.
I turned to writing fantasy fiction as a salve for my disappointment. My initial attempts at short stories felt like cheap imitations of the works of Gaiman and Morgenstern.
But I kept writing, and unexpectedly, the gods of my childhood started creeping into my stories. I was worried their tales wouldn’t find an appreciative audience in North America, except among the South Asian diaspora.
Then, in an act of true magic, a dear friend pointed me to Christopher Pike’s Thirst series, formerly The Last Vampire.
Pike’s incorporation of Hindu philosophy, his depiction of Lord Krishna, and his formidable protagonist—a 5,000-year-old vampire named Sita (a Hindu goddess) in 1990s America—were so fantastic and wildly imaginative yet so respectful of Hinduism these books made me fall back in love with the very gods I had resisted writing about.
This is what fantasy does best. First, it shows you the magic that already exists in your life. Then it gives you the courage and permission to claim it for yourself.
You can learn more about Anitha Krishnan here: https://thedreampedlar.com |
