India, Nov. 29 -- The sub-genre of memoir writing, within the larger genre of non-fiction, has become quite popular in India over the past decade. Biographies, memoirs and historical non-fiction now flood the market, and according to publishing sources, are very popular. It is in this light that I contextualise There's a Ghost in My Room, the debut book by Sanjoy K Roy. Roy is publicly known as managing director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 30 acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across 40 cities, in countries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and USA; including the world's largest literary gathering: the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. But Roy as a writer? He often asks fellow writers these days, "How do you guys write book after book. Writing one is so difficult." He said he wrote the bulk of this book on long-haul flights. Intriguingly, it carries the sub-title: Living with the Supernatural. So where are the ghosts here? Does one have to really see to believe them, or can we trust our imagination for them to be true? Do ghosts exist, or are they only figments of our imaginary landscape? What is real, what is virtual? These are some of the questions Roy explores. The book is not necessarily about finding answers to these conundrums, but about accepting them as a parallel part of our psyche, and being at peace with them. The Freudian model of Ego, Super Ego and Id may be just modern Western classifications of our own subcontinental world of ghosts - that of bhoot-pret, of duality; of white / black, Durga / Kali, aakash / pataal, and more. "I am neither mystic nor sceptic, neither soothsayer nor steeped in the occult. But the supernatural and the otherworldly are realities for me. . [They] explore different dimensions of existence and embrace the miracles of daily life," Roy writes, adding that "the notion of sixth sense or instinct... has led me to take most of my decisions: from making friends and engaging in relationships to working with business partners and accepting projects..." Elsewhere, he writes: "Spooks don't necessarily jump out at you in the most expected of places. I haven't chanced upon a ghost or a ghoul in the Valley of the Kings or Queens, in the Pyramids of Giza, at the Temple of Thebes or the caves of Cappadocia, but I have experienced them in more ordinary settings: in a vacant plot of land, on a tree outside the bedroom window, at home or on a riverbank. While I pretend to take these in my supposedly cool stride, I still jump out of my skin in terror when faced with an unexpected and uninvited apparition. My stories are my reality - or certainly an interpretation of events that Puneeta and I and our larger circle of family and friends have experienced." The last line is crucial to deconstruct. There's a Ghost in My Room is really a paean to his wife Puneeta, his family and close friends. His loyalty to them is expressed in this book with clarity and sincerity. I remember savouring the marvellous Bengali movie Bhooter Bhabishyat (Ghost's Future; 2012). In it, the director cleverly inflects the dialogue delivered by the ghosts with a formal, poetic and stylised speech. They speak in iambic pentameter, while the mortals of Earth speak in plain prose. I feel Roy also obliquely uses that trope (consciously or otherwise), in an understated manner. The ghosts in Roy's book are not to be meddled with, but to be treated with respect. "The first spirit Sanjoy Roy encountered was one that haunted his ancestral house in Calcutta; he was five then. A few years later, the otherworldly made its presence felt again in his parents' sprawling bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi," the jacket blurb reveals. "Over the decades that followed, he and his family and friends have come across a variety of apparitions, spectres and phantoms in diverse locations both in India and abroad. Some of these beings are benign or at most mischievous, but others - lost, disturbed souls - are angrier and have to be placated." Written in accessible, free-flowing conversational prose, There's a Ghost in My Room records Roy's rich life and career in a way that is never humdrum and is always lively, energetic, raw and sometimes moving. It is partly a travelogue, full of varied adventures, encounters, illusions, delusions and visitations, and wholly an account that will delight the reader with its infectious irony and wry wit....