“In our quest for comprehending the strange duality between good and evil, we often tend to hide beneath the shadows of fear. More than often, we associate fear with darkness. This is the story of human nature,” said Mrinal Rai, the author of Tamas -- The Darkness Within which was released as a part of Comic Con on Sunday. His latest book, a psychological thriller, delves into the edgier side of human psyche and unravels various perspectives of chosen reality.
Tamas... is woven around the life of Munna, an unassuming and fearless contract killer, who is convinced that evil lies within the spheres of darkness; thanks to a few life-altering incidents that unfold one night. Hired by a psychiatrist, Munna enters a mental asylum in order to finish a ‘task’ after meticulous planning. But, in a weird twist of fate, something goes terribly wrong that night. Apart from dealing with bizarre situations, he is also faced with the dilemma of not differentiating between the doctors and patients. Has his reality been fabricated by someone else or has his mind conjured up events and identities that do no exist? Only time will tell.
According to Rai, he wanted to explore the idea of human beings running away from their realities through Tamas. “In this story, Munna is an outsider. He wouldn’t like to reveal his own identity or character. Then, how can he expect others to do the same? So, the whole situation sends him spiraling down to a point where he is forced to make sense of things on a fundamental level. For this book, though I had the basic structure and plotlines in place, I had to do a lot of research on human psychology to get into the minds of the characters,” said Rai who further added that despite knowing what destiny had in store for his characters, it took a lot of meticulous planning to string the story together.
Rai truly believes that every individual has a certain amount of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ within himself or herself. And, Tamas is his way of ascertaining the fact that we are capable of both beauty and monstrosity.