A New Arc(x)

It seems redundant, yet essential, to say that the world was a different place when I first came up with the idea for Arcx. We were all still in the trenches of the pandemic, and a novel kind of instability had seized the world. It seemed impossible that we would emerge from it unscathed. 

In many ways, we didn’t. 

In the four years since I started recording these interviews, the world, and South Asia in particular, has witnessed major shifts: we’ve witnessed growing authoritarianism, multiple genocides, border disputes, the rise and fall of governments, and more. Headlines began to resemble plots from science fiction novels, turning prose into prophecy in more ways than one. 

Isaac Asimov is famously credited with saying, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” The years since have shown that his words hold water. I often find myself wondering, as I’m sure many other science fiction fans do, what he would make of this world. Unravaged by monsters, killer robots, or aliens, but disintegrating under the watch of indifferent humans willing to endure climate disaster just to keep asking an A.I for answers. 

Too many people still dismiss science fiction as pulpy, unrealistic, and silly. They fail to see what science fiction fans have known for a long time: it doesn’t take much to create a real life dystopia. Don’t let silly costumes and aliens distract you. Despite the purported escapism of their settings, the stories that science fiction writers create are more clearsighted than people realise. No one who has actually read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Orwell’s 1984 or anything written by Ursula K. Le Guin doubts that. 

With each season, Arcx has delved deeper into what makes speculative fiction in South Asia so unique and special. Given the mercurial times we live in, it’s unsurprising that South Asia’s speculative and science fiction scene is slowly but surely growing. For many fans of the genre, much of our youth was spent reading old white men speculate on world views that little resembled our own. It’s a refreshing and exciting thing to see yourself in stories. To recognise the lore, to understand characters on a visceral level, to identify with the issues being tackled, to see our histories set the stage for brave new worlds. 

The writers I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing are not just fascinating individuals, but visionaries in their fields. It’s been a privilege to talk about how they are navigating the complexities of their culture, uncertainties of the future, and legacies that cast a long shadow. Whether it’s Saad Z. Hossain grappling with a menacing artificial intelligence in Dhaka of the future, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne reckoning with colonialism in space, Bina Shah imagining a world where women retake their agency in reconfigured nations, Usman T. Malik excavating the horror in the ordinary, Gautam Bhatia using science fiction to highlight carceral injustice, Tashan Mehta crafting worlds and whales out of memory, Vajra Chandrasekera re-imagining the trials and tribulations of the chosen one, or Vandana Singh starting conversations about climate change through time and space. 

At its heart, Arcx has always been a passion project. A meeting of nerds, if you will. For all that we discussed serious topics, there was a real joy to these conversations. The thrill of chatting to kindred spirits (as Anne Shirley, another childhood icon of mine used to say), and finding, amongst all our differences, a genuine passion for the genre. A willingness to sit down and have hard conversations, to carefully weave together threads that others neglect, and to bring magic into barren landscapes. As a writer myself, it’s wonderful and humbling to see the world as these storytellers do, to sift through their memories to find nuggets of gold in long-forgotten places.

When I put together my first brief, I had one big question: what were the stories that shaped the storytellers? On the surface it’s a simple query. Most readers (and almost all writers are voracious ones) have tons of influences to draw upon. Some of them were expected. I found myself having long discussions about Jane Austen, Italo Calvino, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tennyson, Enid Blyton, Ambedkar, Ghalib, Studio Ghibli, The Exorcist, Terry Pratchett, and more. It’s a joyous communion to find obsessions in common (Jurassic Park! The Discworld! Fears about the Bermuda triangle!). 

After our first season, our team laughingly had to warn everyone that Tolkien had been discussed to death (check out season one if you’d like to hear in-depth chats about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). This helped open up conversations about lesser known books and media as well, especially translated works. It expanded my world in ways I can’t describe. Whether it was discussing video game lore or high fantasy novels or regional radio plays or serialised comics—these conversations really turned everything that I thought I knew about inspiration on its head. 

The more the South Asian scene expands, the more there is to dissect. Over the years, I’ve discussed the growth of the literary landscape with both experienced and debut authors. And it’s been fascinating to hear, from their perspectives, where we are succeeding and failing. Authors are suddenly wrestling with different problems: How do you represent your complex culture without completely succumbing to the Western gaze? How do you ensure that more diverse voices are represented? How do you address historical and significant systems of oppression like caste and class which creep into fantasy and mundane worlds alike? How do you tackle religion and origin myths in vastly different terrains? How do you honour your heritage without rehashing the same stories again and again? We didn’t find all the answers—I doubt anyone can—but it is encouraging that these are topics of discussion, that South Asian science fiction has come far enough that we can quibble about the kind of representation we have. When Arcx began, and I struggled to find guests for my first two seasons, these are not the kind of problems I thought we’d face. 

Another gap that has increasingly emerged is that of access. Unfortunately, writing isn’t a lucrative field. For many, writing fiction full-time is a distant dream. Similarly, publishing is hindered by a Catch-22 issue: you need to actually sell books in order to commission more. And while science fiction and fantasy have dedicated readers, the numbers don’t compare to literary fiction and non-fiction, at least in India. Additionally, publishing, like many other fields, is guilty of often going for the ‘safe’ option—choosing experienced, privileged people writing in the dominant language of the industry—English. Diversifying science fiction in South Asia, and in India in particular, is a work in progress. Every year new writers are emerging. Some are being discovered for the first time by English-speaking audiences through the work of gifted translators, others shifting mediums from short stories to novels, and still more are defying expectations of caste, class, and faith to add more varied tales to the canon. And we are all the richer for it. 

This field, burgeoning though it is, is picking up pace, growing slowly and surely into a juggernaut that I hope will rival the South East Asian or Global North scenes. We have no dearth of stories and people to tell them. The foundation for an exciting legacy has been laid, and I consider myself lucky to have a front row seat to watch its transformation.

Transformation and transition are two sides of the same coin, and one we’ve been pondering deeply at Dark ‘n’ Light. You may have noticed that there were only four episodes in Season 4 of Arcx. The truth is, and here I risk drawing back the curtain, I lost my father midway through recording this season. As I’m sure many of you can imagine, it shifted the trajectory of my life irrevocably. I thought I had experienced seismic change before, but I was wrong. Real change, unfortunately, is often far beyond your control. It leaves you floundering, awash in unnavigated waters. My loss has made me re-evaluate many aspects of my life and the work I do. I find myself more uncertain than ever, shifting and seeking more and more. But perhaps that’s fitting for the uncertain times we live in, and the genre I love.

While I’m proud of everything the team and I have accomplished with Arcx, I can’t help but wonder how we will keep up with the “interesting” times we exist in. In many ways, we’ve already begun the process of adapting. Our conversations are more focused, in-depth, political, and analytical than they have been before—a far cry from the ramblings of season one. But I know more transition and transformation are around the corner, both for Arcx and for myself as a creator. 

All of this is to say, in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “…the times they are a-changin’” or perhaps more accurately, in the words of the late great Ursula K. Le Guin, “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” Arcx will be back, as will I, perhaps not new and improved, but changed nonetheless.