"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
"Parshati" is an exploration into the emotional vicissitudes of a modern Indian woman. The novel, named after the protagonist, Parshati, navigates the alleys and corners of the psyche of a modern woman who has recently lost her mother and is estranged from one she has deeply been in love with. The novel spans a year of Parshati’s life, where she writes in her diary, what she otherwise would have told her mother, who had been her closest friend, had she been alive. The novel is bilingual - written in English interspersed with Bengali - giving it a more authentic tone and real-life feel, because that’s how most modern Indian women, generally converse. She speaks with her mother (hypothetically) mostly in Bengali (her mother tongue), and in English with Dr Dashorathi (who is her unacknowledged lover and not a native Bengali).
On one hand, the novel has vivid depictions of the unbearable physical pain Parshati’s mother underwent when she was admitted in ICU and put on ventilation before she passed away, and the associated psychological trauma and suffering that Parshati had to undergo. On the other hand, it subtly portrays the deepest affection and love that she felt for Dr Dashorathi, without ever being able to express herself, encumbered in her various roles in life. The name
‘Parshati’ is another name of Draupadi, and true to its meaning, the novel is an honest reflection of the various circumstances that affect the life of a modern woman. Honesty, but not necessarily virtuosity, imagination, but not fabrication - are traits that lend this debut novel, a character of its own.
Soumyanetra
Soumyanetra is currently an associate professor at the Economic Research Unit (ERU), Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata. Previously she has held faculty positions at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) Mumbai and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB).
She has been an outstanding student and a topper throughout, topping the state of Orissa from Ravenshaw College Cuttack with record marks in the Higher Secondary Examination. She completed her schooling from Loreto Day School Bowbazar, her Bachelor’s in Economics (Hons.) from Presidency College and Master’s from ISI Kolkata. She earned her doctorate in Economics from Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey, USA.
Even though she’s a trained economist, she has always been a passionate lover of English and has been composing in various genres since childhood. In fact, even though she was a doctoral student of Economics at Rutgers, she had the privilege of teaching undergraduate courses in English at Rutgers (which ranks amongst the best English departments in the USA). She has two collections of poems, “You’re the Mecca I never want to visit” (2019), “Que Sera, Sera” (2022), and a collection short stories titled “How Long’s a Day” (2021) to her credit, all of which have been very well-received. She is also a Winner of Asian Literary Society’s Wordsmith Award Contest 2020 (English Poetry) for her poem “An Elegy for the Unborn”. She represented English in Sahitya Akademi’s Young Writer’s Meet in May 2021.
She is also a passionate Bharat Natyam dancer.
