Bureaucrat’s latest books turns the spotlight on India’s environmental concerns

It all begins at the fateful forest fire of 2018 on the hills of Kurangani in Tamil Nadu. Atulya Misra, an IAS officer, was appointed by the State Government to probe the incident. He has now written a novel whose protagonist is inspired by the guide who saved the lives of several trekkers.

Testimony By Fire (published by Rupa) is about a journey this survivor undertakes across the length and breadth of our country. When Misra, an Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Department of Sports & Youth Welfare, set out to write a novel, he wanted his protagonist to travel through India’s “aspirational districts”.

The term, he explains, is used in administrative parlance to describe places that are underdeveloped. “I always thought that as an officer, I should work on these districts; find out what can be done for them,” he says. His protagonist’s journey, hence, is through these “underdeveloped parts of our country,” Misra explains, adding: “He tries to figure out what is going wrong in these places, but does so without judgments.”

Misra took over a year to write the book, balancing a very demanding work schedule. Testimony By Fire is his third work of fiction. His previous titles, also by Rupa, include Oxygen Manifesto and Vultures of Paradise, both of which have, at their core, the environment. While the former is about the emergence of a green party in India, Misra explains that the latter talks about circular economy. “I have always enjoyed writing about the environment,” he says.

Atulya Misra
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In Testimony By Fire too, the protagonist Ranjeeth witnesses problems that our nation faces due to mindless development. He, however, is not an ordinary citizen. “He rises to be the President of India,” explains Misra, adding that however, in the story, he dies, turning into a “walking ghost” who is accompanied by a co-traveller, the narrator.

Misra enjoys writing; he finds the process a “stress-buster”. He says, “I am not a regular writer. I’ve just written just three books over a period of 10 years.” He explains that when certain story ideas take root in his mind, he has the urge to put them down in words. “This is how I started writing,” he says. He prefers to write early in the day. For his latest book, he weaved in his experiences of travelling across India on work. Ranjeeth, the protagonist, travels to Agra, Goa, Delhi, Rameswaram, Mumbai, and Manipur, among other cities and states, taking in issues that plague the environment in each of these places.

While Misra is constantly on the move on official duty, he is also thinking of story ideas to work on. He hopes to write a book on the Chennai floods next.

 Testimony By Fire is available on Amazon