Ajinkya Bhasme has been into books ever since he was child. “All thanks to my parents, especially my mother, a lawyer, who created an environment of stories around me. As I found the typical bedtime stories repetitive and boring, she started with Indian epics. Once through with them, she began narrating her criminal trials in the courtroom,” says this chemical engineer from IIT Bombay, who worked as a scientist with a pharma company, before becoming an HR manager.
The fantasy, fiction and non-fiction stories Bhasme heard as a child resulted in When the Devil Whispers, his debut novel that released last year and has now been nominated for screen adaptation.
In Delhi, for the launch of his second book, As Death Stared Back, at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket, Bhasme says writing is one of the mediums through which he expresses his thoughts.
“Every person has a unique story to share. Every pain has its own place and every ecstasy, its importance. I orchestrate my plot into several notes, in layers playing over one another. When you hear these individually, they sound like a tune, but together, you have an epic song.”
Based on the real-life incidents of a patient, As Death Stared Back is the author’s bid to create awareness about Capgras Delusion, a mental disorder for which he made several visits to the Thane Mental Asylum. He got so deeply involved with the patients there that he himself slipped into depression. “It took me 10 days to come out of it,” he recollects.
For two years, Bhasme researched on Capgras Delusion, did a couple of courses in psychiatry and read many books.
“Then I took 18 months to sit down and write this book,” he adds.
Having done extensive research in psychology, Bhasme now sees ghosts in a different light.
“A ghost is not spirit of the dead, but negative energy, an energy which stems from a deep psychological anguish or insecurity. It could be longing for something obsessively or missing someone departed; it could be a deep desire or some insecurity,” he explains.
Capgras Delusion is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (even pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor. “There is no awareness about this disorder in India, though a large number of people are suffering from it. The sad part is such patients often commit suicide.”
As Death Stared Back is touted as the country’s first psychological fictionalised horror book.
Talking about the genre, he says, “Psychological horror is a genre where ghosts actually are present in reality and not in the fictional dimension,” he say addding that his brand of horrr is scarier than your regular horror story. “This is because it can easily happen in the real world. Psychological horror will not have jump scares, but will give you an unsettling feeling that stays for a long time.”
So, which role rules his personality – the author, the HR manager or the scientist?
“I love being all of them,” pat comes the reply, “I don’t have to compromise on any of these to be better or worse in the other. I still deliberately do the same things. I still do chemical engineering where I use my IIT degree, I use my knowledge of psychology and mathematics in my HR job, I write at night without having to compromise in a good amount of time for myself and my family as well.”