Abhilipsa Sahoo is one of the 100 commended poets for Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2019. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Perverse, JAKE, Bending Genres, Redivider, etc. She is a software engineer based in Bengaluru, India.

Her story ‘The Haunting of Chill House’ features in THE BARE BONES BOOK OF HUMOUR. The anthology’s editor Ankit Raj Ojha describes it as “trendy sisters encounter an in-house ghost in tune with the times.” He interviewed Abhilipsa to know more about the cool plot line.

Tell us about your perspective on humour and its place in writing and in life.

Humour has always been my way of experiencing an acknowledgement of the absurdities of life and a release from them. When I laugh, or make someone else laugh, it helps, even if momentarily, to rise above the tragedy. Not by denying it, but by gazing at it askance. In writing, humour works like negative space in painting. It’s not always the subject, but it defines the edges of everything else. I also believe that humour is the one ingredient that never spoils the dish, no matter how generously it’s used.  

What are the things, works, and authors that have influenced your writing? 

My first brush with satire came through Fakir Mohan Senapati’s story, ‘Daka Munshi’, which was part of my Odia Literature curriculum in high school. A second story of his, ‘Patent Medicine’, was introduced to me by my mother. Through his works, I came to a realisation that humour can also be used as an act of resistance, and/or to critique societal and colonial institutions and traditions. Other writers who have carved my outlook in a similar fashion include Jane Austen, Kurt Vonnegut, Ruskin Bond, and R.K. Narayan, among others. 

Is there any image, phrase, idea, place, person, or memory that became the seed for ‘The Haunting of Chill House’? 

I’m deeply fascinated by pop and youth culture and consistently weave its influence into my work, however subtly. From generation-defining films and fashion icons to trending memes and music, these elements inevitably find their way in. The title of this story, in fact, draws inspiration from a well-known horror mini-series—something readers will recognise almost instantly upon reading.