‘Although Life Is Abracadabra was inspired inside a dream, some dreams can take a long time to materialize’- Baisakhi Saha [Exclusive Interview]

Hi, this is Mili here and here I am again this week with an exclusive interview with Baisakhi Saha, I had already read and reviewed her book so I thought why not have a chitchat with her. This interview is a short one but it was quite interesting for me.

So, meet Baisakhi Saha, a fascinating storyteller whose journey from a passionate reader to a renowned author and global speaker is truly inspiring. Growing up, she devoured books but never imagined she’d one day write her own until her time in Venezuela, where she felt deeply connected to the universe. Her first book, “magicNine,” emerged from this experience, leading to a remarkable transformation from local English teacher to international author and speaker. Baisakhi’s creative spark didn’t stop there; she expanded her work into calendars and journals, blending her writing with her passion for dance. With upcoming projects like “Life Is Abracadabra” and “Nrit -the dream of finding the self,” Baisakhi continues to push boundaries, sharing her wisdom through blogs and TEDx talks, inspiring others to embrace life’s magic.

Mili:    Do you prefer to outline your stories beforehand? Please give us a quick short trip to your story. What themes or messages do you hope readers will take away from it?

Baisakhi: Well, in the case of Life Is Abracadabra, I already knew what anecdotes from my travels were going into it. So yes, I did have an outline in my mind and just had to elaborate them on paper by adding all the juicy details into the stories.

As for my story, I left home to study abroad on scholarships while still in my teens. Since then, I’ve not just travelled but dwelled in different continents learning the language of life and love through myriad mirrors of reality. From Asia to Europe to Africa to South America to North & Central America, I have lived with local families, eating their food, adopting their lifestyles, contributing to their economy, inhabiting their culture, imitating their costumes, negotiating extreme realities and belief systems, and navigating varied traditions and religions for several years to answer life’s most pertinent questions. Coming from a conservative family in India, I had to overcome all limitations to fly!

The idea behind writing this memoir was to highlight the magical elements in the journey, the abracadabra moments, the signs & synchronicities that guided my path and made this grand voyage of the heart even possible. As the book strives to explore reality from another dimension, hence, if not anything else, I hope that readers will understand how synchronicity works through the stories shared in it.

You see, synchronistic experiences happen to everybody but not everyone is attentive to these mysterious messages from the larger universe. So one may dismiss them as mere coincidence and the meaning is lost! A sign or synchronicity never interferes with free will and recedes into the past without creating a single ripple in your field of reality should you choose to ignore it. However, if you take heed when a synchronicity appears in your life, your perception of that moment deepens, as passageways are created from one level of the mind to another leading to a fuller and more profound communication with the self.

Once we become aware of these synchronicities as our guiding mechanism, as our means of deciding what is true for us and what is not, we energize our communication with creation, as the synchronicities multiply, becoming more and more frequent and coherent, so much that we couldn’t possibly count them all. Nevertheless, paying attention to as many as we can will help construct our subjective awareness of reality and personal store of intelligence, as the signs, the guidance, the path will be unique to each of us. It is all just so mind-boggling we’d still have to remind ourselves that it is indeed real.

And so, I tell my tales of hope and faith, of magical coincidences and miracles to anyone that would listen. Yet, many times they went horribly wrong—my manifestations, when I was in deep deep waking sleep and ignored the announcement of outer intention, but it is also through those experiences of contrast that I learned to play better.

Mili: How did you make balance while writing your character driven travel stories and spiritual awareness? How do you even balance between your job and writer’s life?

Baisakhi: I didn’t have to do any balancing between my travel stories and spiritual awareness because the stories by themselves are spiritual in nature that will make anyone look at life with new eyes.

My passion is my job and vice versa, so I don’t need to balance between those two either. That said, I don’t write all the time; far from it, I hardly ever make time for writing. I only write when I’m inspired. And I do a lot of other things to be inspired. I spend all this time with myself, playing in my mind, fantasizing, imagining, day-dreaming, juggling with possibilities, that penning down my thoughts is actually the last step in the process. The beginning is always the dreams, the playful imaginations, the unconscious witticisms, the childlike curiosity that makes me want to create stories and scenarios in my head, most of the time playing with the characters and circumstances of my own life and creating my masterpiece by weaving all those elements into a story. Even though writing is a lonely hobby, it sets my imaginations on fire and brings out the best plots to the story at hand! The best way I enjoy writing is by being uninhibited in the mind.

Yet I am not just a writer, but also a speaker, dancer, actor, performer, teacher, translator, traveller, painter, fashionista… basically, an artist of the heart! I could pick any number of the above as my career, but at some point, I had to focus on one, so that one thing became writing which I often combine with speaking globally as travelling goes hand in hand, and the other passions continue on the side.

Mili:  What moments or aspects of the writing process or any special character brought you the most satisfaction or joy?

Baisakhi: Actually, the satisfaction came much later when I started receiving the flattery remarks! Whoever has read the book so far has given me excellent feedback, without exception, be it an endorser, blogger, reviewer, interviewer, or a general reader. Some have even reached out to me to share their reading experience about how beautifully it is written, how much it has moved them or made their dreams bigger and stronger, etc. As an author, what else brings us joy? Similarly, the happiest moments were when the book was being generously praised by renowned luminaries and world visionaries, including two-time former-president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Guinness world records holder, Emmy award winner, international bestselling authors whose books have been made into major motion pictures, prominent media and business personnel, who gave it their glowing endorsements.

There weren’t any detested moments but many challenging circumstances to birth this book. Although Life Is Abracadabra was inspired inside a dream, some dreams can take a long time to materialize. Despite having conceived and composed the book literally within a month, it took more than four years for it to be published—the reason being that I wanted to go the traditional route of publishing, which takes time, as I had no prior experience. Then the pandemic came in between and delayed everything with life having come to a halt for so many across the planet. Moreover, I remember the day the editor at Hay House contacted me to start the process, my father passed away, and I had to keep her waiting for months at a stretch, as I travelled from Costa Rica to India to sort out his unfinished businesses. And even though its publication was enormously delayed, I’m happy with the end result at how it all turned out. As they say, divine timing is always perfect! Besides, the book cover looks stellar; it has received so many compliments from the general public that I’m simply blown away. And finally, this book is dedicated to my father who did not live to see it come to life.

Mili:    You added small snippets after every story; tell us how did you come up with this idea of including additional facts? 

 Baisakhi: Well, although the book has stories from my travels across the globe, they were written more to highlight the abracadabra moments, the magical elements in the journey, and less of actual travel facts. Hence, the intention behind adding the ‘Fun Facts’ section at the end of each chapter was to give the readers a glimpse of different cultures and belief systems thus weaving interesting travel elements into the tapestry, so the narrative could contain both spiritual and travel knowledge.

Mili: In the grand finale of your narrative, how do you ensure the culmination of character arcs twerks seamlessly with the resolution of plot threads, creating a harmonious and satisfying conclusion?

Baisakhi: Since mine is a non-fiction, magical, true, travel stories book, I didn’t really have to ensure any character arcs or plot twists to make the narrative extra interesting towards the end. That said, it so happens that the final story in the book titled ‘A Borboleta’ which is ‘The Butterfly’ in Portuguese, is indeed extraordinary as the characters in it involves a butterfly and my deceased friend communicating from the afterlife through signs and dreams, making the culmination of the book that much more intriguing and mind-boggling. As I said before, they are the strangest of stories; however, the most extraordinary stories are often the true ones.

You see, the stories were happening to me and through me. The path was written and I was writing it. The game plays the game, the poem writes the poem; you cannot separate the painter from the painting, the dancer from the dance. This book comes from that space in my dreamscape.

 

And with that, we conclude our interview with Baisakhi Saha, a beacon of inspiration and wisdom. Through her tales of adventure and spiritual awakening, she invites us to see the magic woven into the fabric of our lives. As we bid farewell, let us carry her message of hope and wonder with us, embracing each moment as an opportunity for growth and discovery. Thank you, Baisakhi, for sharing your journey and your insights with us.

Buy the Book Here