Anjali Roongta is a passionate and introspective twenty-something author and poet whose work centers on the complexities of human relationships. As the CEO of Muses_Saga and an ardent eco-warrior, she blends creative expression with social consciousness. Writing often from the perspective of her recurring character, Siya, Anjali explores themes of trauma, identity, and emotional survival. Her literary voice is raw, honest, and deeply personal—making her stories resonate with readers seeking truth beneath the surface of everyday life.
The Literature Times: Siya: A Suicide’s Argument deals with intense emotional themes—what inspired you to write such a deeply personal and vulnerable story?
Anjali Roongta: Because I felt this story needed to be told. For me to get my pain and anger out, to a point, but mostly because I saw a lot that needed to be communicated, given a voice, and because I wanted people to see the importance of therapy and have the hope of healing, while knowing the truth of how long and hard the journey is. Plus, I had been writing this book for seven years and needed to submit something for my college internship, and I loved the high and mighty idea of bringing a new genre to literature or reviving a not so popular one and becoming part of literary history. Younger me was something, I guess. Plus, I kept getting sucked into these characters and scenes, but mostly in a healthy manner. Honestly, when you spend almost a decade on a story, I think you write it because it wants to be told. I think Maya Angelo said something similar.
The Literature Times: Siya is a recurring character in your work. How did she first come to life, and in what ways has she evolved over time?
Anjali Roongta: I really don’t remember but I do remember five or six years into writing the story, I decided that the main character was a goddess re-born with ages of memories and decided to call her Siya, inspired by Indian mythology. While that idea was eventually tabled, I decided to stick with the name Siya as it represented tenacity and sacrifice and complexities of womanhood in terms of expectation vs healthy choices and autonomy in many cultures. Overtime, Siya has grown as the story shows, and while there are some shades of me in her, she is definitely her own person, who has gone from character traits, personality types, quotes, etc. to a full protagonist, I hope. Who still has some cringe and fun quotes in my photos folder.
The Literature Times: The book confronts familial trauma head-on. What was the most challenging part of writing about such intimate experiences?
Anjali Roongta: Re-reading it. Making it interesting. Balancing a good story with advocacy.
The Literature Times: How do you balance storytelling with mental health awareness, especially when writing about suicide and self-harm?
Anjali Roongta: That is always difficult. While I try to do my best, I often talk in therapy about whether what I am doing is harmful. I take notes from creators like Hello Future Me’s Tim and also get psychology professionals or students to beta read my work to ensure nothing harmful is being put out there. While I used to put trigger warnings in graphic detail, after recent research, I have fallen back to disclaimers and age ratings like my therapist suggested. I try to take very little creative liberty when depicting therapy, and while I did use some magic realism to show what mental breakdown feel like, I try to stick to research and facts.
The Literature Times: As someone who writes both prose and poetry, how do you decide what form best fits a story or emotion?
Anjali Roongta: I am what writers call a panster, someone who writes when the emotion strikes and lets the story flow through them. So I usually just write and then put things together to see what I have. Yet, these days I do plan a bit.
The Literature Times: What role does hope play in Siya: A Suicide’s Argument? Would you describe it as a story of survival or reckoning?
Anjali Roongta: While I have not wondered about this question for a while since the story was dusted, hope is central to the story I am telling with Siya, as the main aim of the story was to tell people that healing is possible, but difficult, and can be rewarding. I don’t know about reckoning or survival, though younger me would say the latter fits the story of Siya, but I would say that Siya is a story about growth, hope, and becoming your own person. Siya started as a story inspired by Hindi Medium to document the struggles to humanities students in India, a plot suggested by my mum but that I didn’t feel pulled towards, and then became a chronicle of depression that honestly keeps me up at night because of the feat that it could have caused harm, despite it being centered about healing, imaginary friends, and diary enteries. Eventually over seven years, especially in the last year, the story took form to become about mental health, familial trauma, growth, healing, and more, even if I had used the character’s name to tell youth struggles through her eyes years prior, thinking to ste up the poems as a soft look in Siya’s story, which then had a goddess who lived in Siya’s body and more. Eventually, though, a story of a strong woman finding her place in the world is what emerged and a lot of things changed meaning, some intentionally and some just like that.
The Literature Times: How has your own healing journey influenced your writing—and vice versa?
Anjali Roongta: Siya’s journey is inspired by a lot of my own struggles and healing, in the fact that my healing made me realise it is possible. Before this though, I did write about mental health and struggles, both ones I have experienced and ones I have heard about, to help “give a voice to others.” While now that intention seems slightly pretentious, these poems have become an important part of Siya’s story, which is also inspired by familial struggles and women’s struggles I have heard of and also some which I experienced. A lot of what Ketki, the therapist in the story say, is inspired by own therapist’s advice, though I did get two psychology students to beta read the work, to ensure the advice was appropriate to the situation Siya was facing and not just me trying to make a one shoe fits all solution because that often does not exist in mental health recovery.
The Literature Times: What do you hope readers will carry with them after finishing Siya’s story?
Anjali Roongta: I hope readers take away the message that healing, while it takes work and is different for everyone, is possible, even if it doesn’t happen in a day or two.
