Author Shakti Ghosal currently resides with his wife Sanchita in the city of Kolkata in India. Together, they are the proud parents of two lovely daughters. Passionate about exploring new places and cultures, Shakti has been a globetrotter. He remains elated by the thought that on this globe, his remains a unique name. Shakti uses a wide-angle narrative style in his writings into which he brings his rich global perspective and life experiences!

QUESTIONNAIRE

The Literature Today: What inspired you to imagine the futuristic world in your book, The Last Writer of Kolkata and Other Stories and how much of it is rooted in the realities you observe today?

Shakti Ghosal: The future, I believe, rarely arrives with a dramatic announcement. It enters quietly through the technologies we adopt unquestioningly, the habits we normalise, the cities we reshape, and the relationships we redefine. Over the years, I became increasingly fascinated by what I call “hard trends” forces already in motion that are not speculative, but visible in the present. Climate stress, algorithmic influence, demographic shifts, and the growing mediation of human life through technology all intrigued me deeply.

This book emerged from that curiosity while I was teaching an elective course at the Indian Institute of Management Nagpur. As we discussed these visible, irreversible trends, I looked around the classroom and saw the eager faces of twenty plus years old young men and women. I found myself imagining the human stories that each of them might encounter over the next twenty to thirty years. The stories in the book actually emerged from that intersection of thought, analysis with some imagination thrown in. But I was never interested in merely imagining futuristic gadgets or dazzling technological possibilities. My deeper interest lay in the human consequences of those changes. What happens to memory when everything becomes commodified? What happens to identity when thoughts can be influenced? What happens to love and belonging when efficiency begins to replace intimacy? So, while the settings may appear futuristic, their roots are firmly embedded in realities we already inhabit.

The Literature Today: Your book explores technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, climate change, and the evolution of humanity. Which of these themes concerned or fascinated you the most while writing?

Shakti Ghosal: Without question, the evolution of humanity itself fascinated me the most. I have been a fan of Yuval Harari and his two books, Sapiens and Homo Deus, through which he has plotted the history of Humankind, both past and future.

I have realised that Technology, climate change, artificial intelligence are enormously important themes, but in a sense, they remain external forces. The deeper story lies in how human beings and each one of us respond to them. I have always believed that technology is never merely about machines. It alters behaviour, attention, relationships, expectations, and even moral imagination. Climate change is not only about weather patterns; it is about displacement, loss, adaptation, and survival. AI is not merely about computational capability; it raises questions about agency, authorship, and consciousness. So the question that stayed with me throughout writing was this: As our tools become more powerful, do we become wiser or simply more efficient versions of our flawed selves? That, to me, is the most compelling frontier.

The Literature Today: Despite the futuristic setting, the stories strongly emphasise human emotions and relationships. Was preserving humanity at the centre of the narrative always your primary intention?

Shakti Ghosal: I would say so. In fact, that was the emotional foundation of the entire book. Technology may transform circumstances, but it does not erase longing, grief, hope, love, or moral conflict. A mother still waits for a daughter. A lonely old man still seeks meaning. A child still clings to belonging. A mind still yearns for freedom.

Through the stories, I would like readers to encounter futures that might feel unfamiliar on the surface, but emotionally recognisable underneath. Because ultimately, stories endure not because of their speculative settings, but because of emotional truth. If readers finish the book remembering the people more than the technologies, I would consider that a success. The machinery of the future interested me far less than the fragile, persistent humanity trying to survive inside it.

The Literature Today: Having travelled extensively across the world, how have your global experiences influenced the way you built the social and emotional landscapes within the book?

Shakti Ghosal: Travel has been one of life’s great teachers for me. It strips away assumptions. You realise very quickly that while cultures differ dramatically in language, rituals, architecture, and social norms, the emotional grammar of human life remains remarkably consistent. Whether in bustling Asian cities, quiet European towns, or unfamiliar corners elsewhere, I have seen people wrestling with the same essential questions: Where do I belong? What do I owe my family? What am I afraid of losing? What kind of future awaits my children? Those experiences gave me confidence that even stories rooted in specific geographies Kolkata, the Sundarbans, futuristic urban landscapes could still resonate universally. Travel widened my lens. It taught me that technology may globalise swiftly, but longing remains profoundly human and timeless.

The Literature Today: Your writing is described as visually immersive and emotionally reflective. How do you balance speculative world-building with intimate human storytelling?

Shakti Ghosal: For me, the balance begins by refusing to start with spectacle. I rarely begin with a futuristic concept. I begin with a human moment a silence between two people, an old room, a difficult decision, a remembered voice, a moral dilemma. You would have noticed this in each of the stories in the book. Once that emotional core is clear, the speculative world begins to assemble around it naturally. A story might become cinematic in scope but the arc gets completed in the end through human reflection and intimacy. Readers may initially be drawn to futuristic settings, but they stay because they care about the characters. A beautifully imagined world without emotional stakes becomes architecture without inhabitants. I think storytelling works best when imagination serves intimacy rather than overwhelming it. The future may be vast and dramatic, but our emotional lives remain deeply personal. That contrast is what I enjoy exploring.

The Literature Today: The book title, The Last Writer of Kolkata itself feels symbolic and melancholic. What does ‘the last writer’ represent in the context of a technologically dominated future?

Shakti Ghosal: To me, the “last writer” is both an individual and a metaphor. At one level, he represents someone holding on to reflection in a world increasingly optimised for speed, convenience, and curated experience. Writing requires ambiguity, patience, and introspection qualities not always rewarded in technologically accelerated cultures. However, on another level, he symbolises resistance. The refusal to outsource meaning entirely to systems, algorithms, or manufactured narratives. Writers do something deeply human: they observe, interpret, doubt, remember. In a future where experiences themselves may become commodified, the act of writing becomes almost rebellious. So yes, the title carries melancholy but also quiet defiance.

The Literature Today: As someone with a long corporate career and leadership background, did your professional experiences shape your perspective on how technology may impact future human behaviour and workplaces?

Shakti Ghosal: I would say very much so. My long innings in organisations and the corporate world does allow me a ringside view of how systems evolve and how human beings adapt, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes unquestioningly.

I have seen efficiency become a kind of modern deity. Faster decisions, cleaner dashboards, automated workflows, optimised productivity these are all valuable, of course. But I have also seen how the language of efficiency can sometimes overshadow the messier but essential dimensions of human life: reflection, empathy, creativity, dissent, even hesitation. Technology can improve processes dramatically. But wisdom is not the same as speed. My professional experiences made me deeply interested in this distinction. Machines optimise. Humans interpret. The tension between those two capacities is something I wanted the book to explore.

The Literature Today: The book presents a growing tension between digital convenience and the human soul. Do you believe modern society is already beginning to lose touch with authentic emotional connection?

Shakti Ghosal: My sense is that we are at risk of confusing connectivity with connection. We live in an age of astonishing reach. We can communicate instantly across continents, access vast information effortlessly, and remain perpetually available. Yet loneliness, emotional fatigue, and a strange sense of fragmentation seem increasingly common. Convenience is seductive because it removes friction. But not all friction is bad. Waiting deepens anticipation. Presence strengthens intimacy. Silence invites thought. The human soul, if I may use that phrase, does not thrive purely on efficiency. It needs attention, ambiguity, slowness, and authentic presence. So yes, I believe the tension is already visible not because technology is inherently harmful, but because we are still learning how to use it without allowing it to reshape us unconsciously.

The Literature Today: Many futuristic stories focus heavily on dystopia, but your work still carries hope. Why was it important for you to remind readers that humanity can still prevail even in a crumbling world?

Shakti Ghosal: Because I believe that despair, while emotionally dramatic, is often intellectually simplistic. I have seen this in my own life. Human history is filled with collapse, conflict, reinvention, and astonishing resilience. We are flawed creatures, certainly but also deeply adaptive. Even in times of profound disruption, people continue to create art, protect loved ones, rebuild communities, and discover meaning. Hope, to me, is not naïve optimism. It is not the denial of danger. Rather, it is a disciplined acknowledgment that human beings have repeatedly demonstrated resilience in adversity. I do not want this book to merely warn. I want that it also reminds readers that tenderness, courage, and reinvention remain possible even in fractured futures.

The Literature Today: The collection feels both cautionary and deeply philosophical. What conversations or reflections do you hope readers will carry with them after finishing the book?

Shakti Ghosal: I hope the stories would leave readers with questions rather than conclusions. What are we willingly surrendering in exchange for convenience? Can progress occur without emotional erosion? Is intelligence the same as wisdom? Can technology amplify humanity without diminishing intimacy? I am particularly interested in whether readers begin reflecting on agency. The future is often spoken of as though it were an unstoppable force descending upon us. But futures are built through choices individual, social, political, technological. If the book encourages readers to think not just about what kind of world is coming, but what kind of world we are helping create, then it has served its purpose.

The Literature Today: Looking ahead, do you see yourself continuing to explore speculative fiction and futuristic themes, or are there other genres and human questions you are eager to examine next?

Shakti Ghosal: Curiosity has always been my primary compass, and the future remains endlessly fascinating to me. So yes, speculative fiction continues to interest me deeply. But ultimately, genre is secondary. My enduring fascination is with human beings observed through a wide angle lens in moments of transition, memory, conflict, longing, reinvention, and moral uncertainty. Whether I write about imagined futures, forgotten histories, climate anxieties, or intimate family worlds, the underlying question remains similar: How do human beings remain recognisably human when circumstances shift dramatically? I suspect that question will continue to follow me whatever form the stories take next.