The dark side
marita Festival Tripathi 34, was the youngest speaker at last month's coun ut a newsroom while in Thailand, bringing a modern insight he her first book, Broken News, was a p and being in a cult without even realisi that years of wor urban issues a broadcast picked up from Tripathi's evious nine n days when she wasn't journalist This b Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga. isn't dark for the sake of being dark" she said "It mirrors reality th there is a darker side to life which older generations prefer o talk about. Mental health issues are not a new thing and one in thr ee or four families in India. I wanted to tell the story without sermon of it, it does affect a lot of young people and they don't have access to help or know how to ask for help Unsurprisingly, it is authors like Haruki Murakami who Tripathiloves. very dark stuff as well and Ienjoy reading his interviews. In one, he said most people have basement their own mind go deep enough and he has a basementbeneath that basement," she said. "What I really love about his workis that evenwhen he's writing about the most bizarre, fantastical thing, it still feels real. The devil makes an appearance in my booksoyou could say hemore or less influenced me Currently working at a public health consulting firm and as a freelance writer, Tripathi is enjoying this new facet of storytelling, as opposed to her reporting days, where the change of approach keeps things fresh for her. Parisa Pichitmarn