Page 72 - EW-June-2025

Books

into the world’s second tionate to officially calcu-
wealthiest nation. lated incomes. ORBITAL
But although the good The plain truth that Samantha Harvey
professor ably details Panagariya doesn’t suf- PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
entrenchment of Nehru- ficiently elaborate in his
vian socialism within the engrossing book under Rs.299
establishment, he offers review, is that the pow- Pages 136
little explanation as to why erful 20 million-strong
this bankrupt ideology has neta-babu brotherhood
struck deep roots in the has a vested interest in
polity. Nehruvian socialism. volume a semblance of This 2024 Booker
The answer is that for This mafia is very difficult structure. For the scien- Prize winner novella
the neta-babu brother- to dislodge. Especially tifically uninitiated, the offers readers a
hood which controls and since the intelligentsia ascending and descend- unique perspective
commands the Indian are mere bystanders, and ing orbits are mapped in of Mother Earth
economy, socialism has the middle class has been an introductory diagram who provides homo
become a lucrative busi- co-opted with a plethora of that details technology sapiens life and
ness. As often lamented non-merit subsidies. challenges confronting nurturance
in EducationWorld and DILIP THAKORE human beings suspended
belatedly highlighted in a in a spacecraft where “be-
detailed cover feature in yond a skin of metal the once they land on Earth,
India Today (April 28), Extraordinary universe unfolds in simple they will become strangers
despite tentative liber- eternities”. again. The non-existent
alization and deregula- immersive While the “centre plot ably supports a
tion 34 years ago, Indian drifts” and “space shreds diverse band of characters
1,536 Acts of Central and experience time to pieces”, national bound together for space
industry is governed by
borders turn fuzzier and
exploration, each with
state governments, 69,000 civilizations fall apart, personal back-stories that
compliances and 6,500 AMANTHA Har- two women and four men reach into their childhoods
annual filings. This brutal vey’s acclaimed manoeuvre weightless- and lives as earthlings.
regimen has facilitated re- S2024 Booker-win- ness and “sardine living”, The individuals sus-
tail corruption of massive ning novel Orbital is time- trying to live out earth- pended inside the shuttle
scale, has squashed the ly. This speculative fiction lives in the context of their go about their daily chores
country’s native spirit of foretold the suspension in own conflicting passions, and experiments with
enterprise and asphyxiated outer space of America’s to contribute to human meticulous diligence while
57 million labour-inten- astronauts Sunita Williams scientific knowledge. adhering to boring rou-
sive MSMEs (micro, small and Butch Wilmore for By forgoing plot, the tines and schedules. Ob-
and medium enterprises), nine months. Uncannily narrative of Orbital servation and experiments
the engines of China’s in Orbital, four astronauts simulates the repetitive, with microbes, rats and
spectacular growth. and two Russian cosmo- cyclical orbits of the one’s own bodies continue
Contrary to popular nauts are designated to live space station hurtling to ignite their scientific
belief, India’s wealthi- for months in outer space through intergalactic professionalism.
est citizens are not the conducting experiments. space. The transnational But as humans invested
country’s small number The central elements of crew — Shaun from USA; with emotions, ideas and
of high-profile industrial- this work of contemporary Chie, pure Japanese; reflection, they are inad-
ists, but politicians and fiction are six disparate Nell, unabashedly equately developed as fic-
bureaucrats. The average individuals who inhabit British; Pietro, a mindful tional characters, which is
self-declared wealth of a space station hurtling Roman Italian and not the point of the book.
Karnataka’s MLAs (mem- through cosmic space in Anton inhabiting the As persona, they remain
bers of legislative assem- daily orbit around the Russian module, form a metaphorically sealed in
bly) is Rs.63 crore, and earth. Twenty-four earth strange “floating family”. their respective sleeping
every week Lok Ayukta hours calculated as sixteen Curiously, this disparate bags in compartments,
raids against government orbits of ninety minutes family functions as a unit forcibly sensitising them-
officials unearth covert each translate into an within “a complex life- selves to repetitive diurnal
wealth vastly dispropor- ‘earth-day’ gives this slim support machine” though and nocturnal cycles.

72 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2025