Swapnit Pradhan is a lecturer in English serving under the Department of Higher Education, Odisha. He has a PhD from IIT Roorkee and often moonlights as an Environmental Humanities researcher. His academic writings are published in many reputed journals.

His story ‘Enlightenment Begins at Home’ features in THE BARE BONES BOOK OF HUMOUR. The anthology’s editor Ankit Raj Ojha describes it as “a middle-class messiah” giving “sermons of gastronomical proportions”.

Ankit interviewed Swapnit to know more about his inspirations and motivations.

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

For me, humour lies in the absurdities we scroll past every day, like people chasing mindfulness through reels or posting about peace in traffic jams. Satire, to me, is just noticing sincerely, which I believe is essential in today’s humour writings. In a world addicted to updates and outrage, humour keeps me sane and slightly detached. It reminds us that we are all performing seriousness on a shaky stage, and like Sisyphus, the least we can do is be happy with or laugh at our own act. 

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

I am influenced by writers who find humour in life’s quiet absurdities. R.K. Narayan’s mundane wisdom, Jerome K. Jerome’s gentle whimsy, Harold Pinter’s observations of life’s chaos and a touch of Kafka’s irony inspire my writings. But honestly, Indian bureaucracy and social media comment sections have been my greatest teachers; both tragic, hilarious, and unintentionally profound. 

Is there any image, phrase, idea, place, person, or memory that became the seed for ‘Enlightenment Begins at Home’? 

The seed for ‘Enlightenment Begins at Home’ came from watching people chase “inner peace” like it’s a limited-time offer. One evening, I saw a man meditating furiously in a park, dressed in formals and checking his phone between deep breaths. That image lingered. It captured the comic tragedy of our times. We want instant enlightenment, preferably while engaging in social media trends. Mr Patra was born from that contradiction: a man earnestly trying to find meaning in a world allergic to stillness.