Pinakie Kansabanik is well-known for his love of writing about people, culture, ethics, and philosophy. He is interested in exploring issues of identity, family relationships, and history. His stories are not so much about his own experiences as they are about his interpretation of what the characters around him are going through. People all over the world have praised and loved his books, Mountains to Manhattan and A Basket of Sunflowers.
Pinakie comes from the small-but-ever growing north Bengal town of Siliguri. The exposure to characters, situations and human reactions have been a part of Pinakie’s life from the very beginning. As life progressed from the foothills to the Himalayan heights, from being a young educator in Sikkim to giving physical shape to marketing dreams in Delhi-NCR, his experiences only kept getting filled up.
Cliched as it may sound of being a corporate-to-creativity crossover, Pinakie doesn’t claim to be a habitual writer – rather he’s happy being an author of experiences and emotions. Debuting with Mountains to Manhattan, a fiction on the refugee crisis of the Tibetans in diaspora, Pinakie finds it challenging and rather satisfying as a writer, to put himself in the shoes of his women characters. His second book, A Basket of Sunflowers takes this journey forward, navigating through the lives of seven women and their stories.
While writing about Mountains and Manhattan, Tibet Sun, an English-language news website focusing on Tibet and the Tibetan people writes, “The book touches on the realities of the exile Tibetans…This book will fill the void of updates on Tibetan issues.” The Tibet post also applauds the book by saying, “A new book focused on a Tibetan female protagonist and based on the story of Tibetans in exile is a refreshing breath of general accuracy regarding the Tibetan experience in diaspora.”
The urge to tell a story is the only inspiration for Pinakie to write fiction. He says, “I have so many stories to tell…so the best way to tell them is to write.” His all time favourite authors are mostly from the Bengali literature namely, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhay, Bamkim Chandra Chattopadhay, Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhusan Bandhopadhay, Shankar, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Sukumar Roy, Satyajit Roy, Manik Bandhopadhay, and many many more.
