Four futures. Four hard truths. And the fragile choices that still make us human.
A few Saturdays back, at South City Club Kolkata, The Last Writer of Kolkata and Other Stories began its journey into the world — not merely as a book launch, but as a conversation about the times we are already living through.
What made the evening truly special was the richness of the panel discussion moderated so thoughtfully by Dr. Vishnupriya Sengupta, alongside the deeply perceptive insights shared by Sanjib Chaudhuri, Poorna Banerjee, and Chitralekha Datta. Shawan Sarkar anchored the evening with warmth and elegance.
The discussion moved across many landscapes:
- A Kolkata where memory itself becomes a commodity.
- A Sundarbans struggling against rising tides and ecological collapse.
- A future where human thought can be manipulated through neural networks.
- An aging society where loneliness, migration, and technology redefine the meaning of home.
Yet beneath all these imagined futures lay one central question: ‘As the world changes around us, what does it mean to remain human?’
What touched me most was the engagement of the audience — the reflections, questions, disagreements, and personal stories that followed. It reminded me that fiction, at its best, is not an escape from reality, but a mirror held up to the forces quietly reshaping our lives.
My heartfelt gratitude to everyone who attended, participated, encouraged, photographed, listened, questioned, and stayed back afterwards for conversations over tea.
Books may begin in solitude. But they truly come alive in dialogue.
If the above themes intrigue you, I invite you to explore more about the book and the stories at: 
www.shaktighosal.com
In Musing……. Shakti Ghosal
A New Beginning 