On the Margins of Science and Fantasy: An Investigation into the Worldbuilding Strategies of Udayasankar, Basu and Dhar

Abstract

Though not studied extensively, cross-genre fiction, particularly science fantasy, thrives in India (Das “Interviews,” Mithila Review 2016). Perhaps because it lies on the margins of Indian fantasy and science fiction, weaving complex exchanges of form and content to create new methods and metaphors for the Indian self. While this complexity is somewhat recognised in the recent scholarship on Indian science fiction, current research either conveniently draws a definition that labels such works as fantasy (Banerjee 2020) or explain it thematically as a result of the interaction of western globalised science and indigenous context (Raja et al. 2011, Khan 2021). But such readings do not give adequate space to how science fantasy creates its unique worlds— a space that inspects the open dialectic of local and universal argued by Chattopadhyay in “Recentering” (2014). In order to unravel this dialectic within Indian science fantasy in English, this paper will borrow Farah Mendlesohn’s methodology (though not her taxonomy) from Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) to analyse worldbuilding in The Aryavarta Chronicles (2012-2014) by Krishna Udayasankar, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport (2023) by Samit Basu and Sands of Time (2022-present) by Payal Dhar. This paper will trace continuities and/or contradictions in the way these authors create unique imaginative worlds and the effect of their worldbuilding strategies on the narrative spaces opened within the texts.