The threads that bind us

Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar talks about the delicate relationship between nature and human beings and goes on to explore different worlds and realities to convey this bond.

The stories in this book narrate how closely our lives are connected with nature. In Polarspeak, for example, Nanna is leading a group of people facing extreme cold and famine and to save her tribe from dying, she uses her rare gift of the tongue to interpret what the colour of the sky means and find a way out. This gruelling journey is making everyone restless, but what will truly change this experience is an unreal incident as they come across hundreds of polar bears which teach them the meaning of survival and coexistence. In another story titled Hunter, the writer reminds us how we also associate nature with memories and tells the story of a man who has come to a river with his two dogs to fish and while doing so goes on a trip down memory lane to remember how his parents brought him to the same site for the first time when he was a teenager. It goes on to explore the possibility of a place being a refuge from the real world.

But apart from telling stories of a world that we all know of, this book also talks about several other universes with varied realities that are extremely different from ours with the connection with nature being the sole thread that joins them all.

In the world of Whirlwind, people communicate through the wind but when one fine day a severe storm hits the area where Haizea resides, she immediately tries to contact her husband Anil but fails to convey the message. After failing to contact her husband and his colleagues, she starts to contemplate whether she should leave her home in search of him and just then hears a faint call for help taking her name which she inadvertently thinks to be that of Anil’s. This instinctively makes her get out of her home and reach her husband as soon as possible. This tale is of complicated emotions and relationships and how sometimes a crisis can reveal the true nature of our souls.

In the futuristic tale, The Forest of Plenty, Gaia 232 is a mothership with a humongous forest with only a small part open for the public living on the mothership as well as its societyships. It prides itself on being perfectly planned and balanced but perfection comes at a cost. In just three pages, the story goes on to show how balance is kept on this ship and why it is so important that things are kept secret from the majority to maintain the mirage of perfection and content. But the author doesn’t shy away from taking a necessary political stance either.

In the very first story, Head in the Clouds, the story weaves a world where clouds are reared like cattle but the protagonist, an ailing old man, deeply cares for his clouds while others are artificially making their clouds rain which ultimately over-stresses them.

Aware of his poor health, the old man goes on to find his small cloud which had gone astray but this journey is not that easy. This story is a not-so-subtle message towards human greed and what we are doing to our own world, believing that the irreparable damage being made can be reversed.

Biopeculiar allows the reader to travel beyond the known world and explore the uncertainties that we have created for ourselves, albeit in a completely different setup. It goes on to depict the art of humanising animals as well as nature through its stories and is successful in portraying a bond of intimacy between the different characters. The fact that Gigi Ganguly has been able to fit 22 stories in less than 190 pages is a tremendous feat. While speculative fiction may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this one has quite a few stories to keep the reader hooked.