Testimony by Fire

Atulya Misra shares the core message of his book through a narration of forest flames mirroring the quiet conflagration of human conscience, an apathy that feeds it daily in conversation with Aditi Chakraborty

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Q Fire in your novel is both a literal disaster and a metaphor for a nation's conscience. What does “testimony” mean to you in this context?

Testimony by Fire was never just about a man who rose from his own pyre. It was my attempt to understand what it means to bear witness in an age when silence has become instinct. The word “testimony” feels sacred to me — not narration, but moral presence; the act of saying, “I will not look away.”

In the novel, fire burns on two planes. Literally, it is the blaze in Kurangani that transforms Ranji's life. In a metaphorical sense, it symbolises the raging fire of inequality, greed, and moral fatigue within society.

Ranji's survival marks the birth of testimony. When he rises from the pyre, barefoot, stripped of status and speech, he becomes every citizen forced to confront what the nation has become. His silence is not emptiness; it is a declaration. He neither accuses nor explains; he walks, and that walk itself becomes a witness. His silence unsettles a world addicted to noise. Ranji mirrors our complicity — the polluted rivers, displaced tribes, and refugees of progress. His passage through temples, mosques, churches, and gurdwaras is not a quest for God but a retracing of India's moral map, a reminder of coexistence and empathy.

We are either silent or complicit witnesses. Complicity wears not cruelty's face but indifference's mask. The citizens in the novel embody that truth until Ranji's presence forces engagement: they clean lanes, plant trees, and release caged birds. Testimony shifts from something observed to something lived.