Lusooma
by
Mathew Panamkat
My rating: 3 of 5 Ω‘s
A strange little find – this was shared with me and I had to check it out just out of satisfying the curiosity of the kid in me who grew up in 80s-90’s India but was not really aware that you could get original Indian sci-fi stories as such and definitely not many geared to kids.
The gist of the story is that the world is at peace. The Indian Federation is the most advanced and dominant power on Earth and humanity has evolved not just scientifically and genetically to be more advanced than we are at present, but also socially and culturally. It is a era of enlightenment and all the horrors of human history are vague memory at best. But into this milieu there is trouble brewing as someone has done the unthinkable and a person was killed – in a world where evil and its actions are all but eradicated, this is beyond unbelievable. Who did it and why? Our main characters are young genius Sud and Sarita who try and untangle the web and find answers.
As for the book itself: It is decent. It is a decently written and poorly edited book clearly targeted at young readers.
Had I read it as a child, I probably would have loved many things about it, not least is the agency and respect given to the thinking and opinions of children. The book is more daring than one would expect with the content wherein it posits a world where all the socio-cultural norms we are so proud of and the religious and such elements of our past and present world are in this future world not even relics but forgotten. I give huge kudos to the writer and the publisher for giving this a chance, especially in a country like India that prizes its past so highly.
Also special mention to the writer who does a nice job showcasing how science and reason and a world of rationality is superior and one to aspire to, but that fundamentally humans are humans and that while reason and science are tools to elevate humanity, they are tools and it is what we do with our tools as people and as a society that is the important point. Blind belief in anything is folly and I appreciated it.
There are concepts like molecular biology, a smart house, lunar and martian colonies and genetic manipulation and more that are touched on and it is the kind of thing one wants from their science fiction.
IN FACT: There is a moment where the author refers to a new super-travel system that replaced the old “Delhi Metro” in the world of the book… and this book came out in 1992, while the actual Delhi Metro only came into existence in 2002. I loved it.
It is a rough read for which I blame the editing more than anything else. Prose for kids can be simplistic and not very elaborate – but there are moments where a little language tweak could make it read better, points where a break would transition you better between scenes/moments that I had to double-take to note it was not a continuing scene and many other things that made it just feel like an unedited manuscript.
It is a good, thoughtful and thought provoking book that with a little polish, I would give to many kids around me. For them to see stories with names and places and people that draw from their own immediate world is a joy for any kid and stories like these that make you consider things while enjoying an adventure and learn new ideas.
One Happy Monk 
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