Qfwfq in Golaghat, or: How I Fell in Love with Science Fiction

Photo: Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

‘I was adept in two subjects demanding two utterly distinct kinds of engagement: one gave me insights into culture, society, language, and human beings; the other perhaps anticipated that I would prefer the mind to the body.’

- Karna

My paternal grandparents kept my aunt’s schoolbooks in a rusted trunk. One day, I found an Assamese non-fiction book for children about the Milky Way Galaxy. I cannot recall who the writer was. Staring down into the book, I would soon learn to look up and develop an interest in the sky.

The sun and the moon are created by God, my mother said to me when I was a kid. My life made more sense before I found that book I had found in the trunk. In this book, the author did not mention that God had created the sun, the moon, the stars and the nine planets of our solar system (yes, we learned about Pluto at school in those days). I was in doubt, feeling clueless and puzzled. As I read this book, I realized how insignificant I was in comparison to our universe, as insignificant as an old broken toy that does not garner any more attention.

Let me tell you that I have hung a picture of Priyanka Chopra on one of the walls of the sitting room. At 14, I decided that I would pursue a career in aeronautical engineering—it was Chopra’s aim in life too. It was my ambition to join the world’s remarkable space organization, NASA. Gradually, astronauts began to appear in my dreams at night. I started acting like Italo Calvino’s Qfwfq. I never had any answers to questions pertaining to the creation of the universe. Qfwfq was much older than me, and, at least, seemed to have some answers at its disposal. We did have one thing in common: Like him, I was obsessed with the way the universe worked.

I have learned with experience that to get a complete picture of our current predicament, maybe we need the beautiful projections created by SF writers, too. It’s a genre that questions dogmas, teaching us never to take anything for granted.

As I could not answer all my queries, I turned to my mother for help, but she failed to satisfy my utmost curiosity, as she attempted to explain everything from a non-scientific point of view. My father was a man of few words, and I knew that it was futile to anticipate that he would answer my questions. Unlike me, my parents were not space freaks.

After I saw extra-terrestrial beings in science fiction movies, the sky became a source of excitement. I desperately wanted to see the sky unravel its mysteries. The sky beguiled my little mongoloid eyes. Dancing before my gaze, the moon and the stars swept me off my feet.

Other people joked about my obsession, something that made me sceptical of my own sense of belongingness. Many considered becoming an astronaut an overly ambitious desire. Our town, Golaghat, was not technologically advanced. There were no escalators. There were no amusement parks. It was far from the Western world’s obsession with robots, cyborgs, androids, and bionic humans. Soon, even my good friends—upon learning my interest in science fiction movies in which extra-terrestrials attacked Earth, where robots were people’s worst nightmares, and cyborgs fell in love with humans—stopped hanging out with me. They found me strange because I did not give any opinions on sexual chemistry.

My parents knew about my aim in life, and they were neither supportive nor disapproving. I had to build a protective shield around me. I promised myself that I would never let others know about my ambition, since there was little encouragement.

Even as I was reading books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, nobody told me that I was delving deeper into this subculture called science fiction. As there was little reading culture in Golaghat, one could not expect people to enlighten me about literary genres. Some people did read at home; yet, reading was not a habitual activity everyone wanted to follow. We didn’t have proper bookstalls. There were a few shops where you could get stationery, textbooks, Assamese books, and English best-sellers. But nobody discussed literature. I never saw anyone reading confidently in public. I read the abridged versions of SF novels, written in ‘easy’ English, at a time when I was too young to understand the difference between an original and an abridged adaptation.

At school, my favourite subjects were English and Maths. After I discontinued mechanical engineering, I was confused between choosing a BSc. Honours degree in Mathematics and a BA Honours in English. I wanted to try my hand at writing poetry, and I made up my mind to choose English as my major subject. I kept Maths as a non-major elective subject because it was exceedingly difficult for me to bid farewell to it.

When my friends asked me what my non-major elective was, I could offer no satisfactory responses. I was adept in two subjects demanding two utterly distinct kinds of engagement: one gave me insights into culture, society, language, and human beings; the other perhaps anticipated that I would prefer the mind to the body.

Last year, I chatted to someone who was a mathematics post-graduate. Whenever I bump into someone who has mathematics as their major, I never miss the chance of projecting myself as someone who is no stranger to calculus and differential equations. He told me about black holes and parallel universes. He said that I would not find Dark—the German series which baffled both literary and scientific communities—very amusing. When he learned that I wrote poetry, he let me know that he didn’t wish to take our friendship for granted. “Poets live in an imaginary world”, he was always saying.

I did not let him know that I, too, knew about black holes and parallel universes. I didn’t show the love poem I had written in the realm of black holes. I did not judge him; nor did I put any efforts to make him understand that Mathematics is like Philosophy.

The global pandemic forced many of us to give up our old habits. This friend, however, hardly changed some of the habits he’d formed. However, I have learned with experience that to get a complete picture of our current predicament, maybe we need the beautiful projections created by SF writers, too. It’s a genre that questions dogmas, teaching us never to take anything for granted.

Dark, I think, is about not only the fictional execution of scientific theories, but also the silences in relationships. Maybe that mathematics guy was terrified of my hybridity. A fusion of emotions and symbols. A Sphynx Cat! I celebrate this complexity, one that now helps me navigate a post-pandemic world.

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Anupom Kumar Hazarika writes under the pen name Karna. Born and raised in Golaghat, he is an Assistant Professor of English at Cotton University. You can find him on Instagram: @anupomkhazarika.