Sabarna Roy

About Book Roy's Frosted Glass did very well in the market. His Pentacles and Winter Poems, did so well that Amazon Audible converted them into Audio books by the Australian young jazz singer, Colin Newcomer. Abyss was on the bestseller list at the Oxford Bookstore at the Kolkata Book Fair in 2014. Random Subterranean Mosaic: 2012–2018 is a kaleidoscope of random, yet mysteriously structured to a pattern, fiction, semi-autobiographical, and autobiographical pieces, covering poems, short-shorts, opinions, observations, and conversations. Roy says: “All my life I have struggled to achieve an optimal lucidity in language and expression that is required to demystify the hidden self and selves and agendas. I hope I have achieved this in a large measure in this fifth book of mine!”

Random Subterranean Mosaic 2012 – 2018 - Time frozen in myriad thoughts

Frosted Glass comprises one story cycle consisting of 14 stories and one poem cycle consisting of 21 poems. The Stories, set in Calcutta, bring to the fore the darkness lurking in the human psyche and bare the baser instincts. The stories, compactly written and marked by insightly dialogues that raise contemporary issues like man-woman relationships and its strains, moral and ethics, environmental degradation, class inequality, rapid and mass-scale unmindful urbanisation, are devoid of sentimentalisation. The result is they remained focused and move around the central character who is named Rahul in all the stories. We encounter the events that shape, mar, guide Rahul's life and also the lives of those around him, making us question the very essence of existence. Rahul symbolises modern man; he is not just one character, but all of us rolled into one. The story cycle stands out for two reasons - its brilliant narrative and the dispassionate style with which betrayal in personal relationships and resultant loneliness has been handled. The poems weave a maze of dreams, images, reflections and stories. They are written in a reflective and many a time in a narrative tenor within a poetic idiom. The poems are inseparable in a hidden way and are magically sequenced like various kinds of flowers in a garland or chapters of differing shades in a novel. Calcutta features in some of the poems like the looming backdrop of Gotham City in a Batman movie.

Frosted Glass

A marriage, an affair and a friendship

Pentacles comprises one long story and four short poems by Sabarna Roy. The work delightfully bridges the gap between the mundane and arcane writings of today and provies an interesting, yet intellectually stimulating, treat for the discerning reader. New Life is a long story written from the perspective of a successful adult whose mother had deserted the family for another man. The teenage angst and the scars it has left behind on the psyche of the protagonist are subtly reflected in the character. The different elements and characters of the story are beautifully interwoven to produce an intense and compelling story of an adult haunted by the trauma of being desetred by his mother. The work is interspersed with thought-provoking views on issues like love and socio-economic conditions in India. The traditionall rhyme and metre dominated poems are on love, loss and longing. Unshackled by the bonds of rhyme and metre, Sabarna's free verses evoke the stark reality of urban life, hitting you straight in the guts. The use of everyday urban imagery adds to the appeal of the compositions. The concrete prison of urban imagery adds to the appeal of the compositions. The concrete prison of urban life and the unfulfilled desire to escape to a simple life is aptly brought out in The Tower. The other poems of the coollection are more biographical in nature with the protagonist being the member of the fairer sex. The free verses sketch best part of all the compositions is that the reader will definitely identify with the poet and will, in one form or other, have similar stories to narrate.

Pentacles

This is a story where Rahul, Paromita, Suroma and Samaresh bisect and intersect boundaries of marriage, affair and friendship, evolving into an intriguing cocktail and mix of human relationship. Sabarna Roy looks at a marriage, an affair, and a friendship in a very in-teresting, and a fast-paced prose and gravitates to the idea of an open marriage in a modernist setting. It is a highly enjoyable read that strikes at our prejudices and regressive thoughts in a subtle and fleeting manner. A must read. True to his style, Sabarna experiments within the format of prose writing inside a single piece of novella. A starkly visual human drama!

A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship

To readers of Sabarna Roy’s Random Subterranean Mosiac: 2012 – 2018, his latest slim and elegant volume titled Etchings of the First Quarter of 2020: Letters, Ideas, Conversations and Poems comes as another delightful read. In this two-part volume, packaged with a selection of his poems, Roy explores the concepts of duality and constancy in discussions with his daughter. Presented as conversations over coffee and desserts, the talks extend to diverse topics with Lolita at one end and marine conservation at the other. In his poems, Roy and his alter-ego, Sandy, soothe and shock you in turns until you burst out of the last page, breathless and asking for more. Sabarna Roy’s characters are all around us. He has dabbled in poetry, prose, plays and non-fiction with equal elan and delved into the emptiness and futility of life reminding us of the masters in the trade. Two quotations from Sabarna Roy’s works will prove the above stated point: “A question leapt into his mind: Is it possible to achieve true happiness by living a solitary life or is it important to lead a community life where one instinctively believes that one’s own desires are insignificant compared to the desires of others and one works towards fulfillment of their desires as if they are one’s own?” “Many questions crossed his mind. Did he secretly crave to believe in god? Was he looking for a god to deflect his loneliness or was his loneliness actually a sense of pride, which was an obstruction between him and his god?” - Forbes India

Etchings of the First Quarter of 2020

Fractured Mosaic is yet another kaleidoscope from Sabarna Roy’s arsenal that will take the readers to a mesmerizing whirlpool. Most of the works published in this book have been earlier published in reputed media houses as musings of an author; in this book they have been brought together for the benefit of all the readers. After the smashing hit of his earlier six master pieces since 2010, Sabarna has been constantly writing in the format of a journal to imitate how the mind works in real life. Sabarna Roy has covered all genres in his literary works: short stories, novella, ballads, narrative poetry, plays, conversations, non-fictional writing, critical analysis of ideas and events, etcetera. He specializes in post-modern urban milieu which delightfully bridges the gap between the mundane and arcane writings of today and provides an interesting, yet intellectually stimulating, treat for the discerning reader. - Hindustan Times A unique matrix of dialogues and conversations between the characters in most of his novels and novellas, and even within his poems, certainly marks the beginning of a new era in English literature. Another significant thing is the easy way in which he flips genres in the same book or within one genre is revolutionary. The Last Plunge in Frosted Glass is a brilliant example. The Prank is a black comedy to its core and Instantaneous Death is an outrageous piece of prose writing. - Deccan Herald The dialogue that motivates Sabarna the most is from Inception by Christopher Nolan. It is – “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed-fully understood-that sticks.” - The Dispatch Sabarna Roy has been awarded the Literoma Laureate Award in 2019, Literoma Star Achiever Award 2020, Random Subterranean Mosaic: 2012 – 2018 won the best book of the year 2019, the A List Award for excellence in fiction by the NewsX Media House, Certificate for The Real Super Heroes for spreading a spirit of positivity and hope during the COVID-19 Pandemic from Forever Star India Award 2020, the Certificate for Participation in the Indo Russian Friendship Celebration 2020, and the Literoma Golden Star Award 2020: Lifetime Achievement.

Sabarna Roy

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