Sadhna Shanker바카라�s 'Continuum': Bringing Indian Sci-Fi to Life

I love reading science fiction, and have recently taken an interest in science fiction from China. What does one sense about a country바카라�its view of the future, its place in the future바카라�from its science fiction? And, right away comes the thought: what about us? Why is there so little science fiction coming from India? What does that say about us as a society? So I was delighted when I was given Sadhna Shanker바카라�s earlier science fiction book, Ascendance. At last, we had come of age. We, as a people, were ready to go beyond retelling our story up to now and start speculating about the future. What would Indian eyes see as that future and our place in it?

Shanker바카라�s latest book, Continuum: A Love Story, situates itself in a dating app startup in a small town near Mumbai set up by a young NRI and named SoulCurry바카라�probably inspired by solkadhi, a popular west coast drink made of kokum and coconut milk. The startup has a small staff, which includes an enigmatic young man, Samar, with eyes that change colour from grey to green to blue and who has amazing technical skills. Pressed to tell something about himself at a party, Samar, after a pause, calmly tells them that he is from a future time and a different planet. While the others laugh this off, it intrigues Alia, who is recovering from a head injury and taking time to 바카라�remember바카라� who she is, and her life with her mother. Alia has vivid memories of herself as a woman living during the time of the Mahabharata. Is she a time traveller too? Both of Shanker바카라�s books, Ascendance and Continuum, take their cue from the issue of gender relationships. In Ascendance바카라�set far in a future where men and women do not need each other for reproduction (indeed, feel little need for children as they are now essentially immortal)바카라� the two sexes have come to see each other as different species, tensely sharing a new planet, but living on different sides of a wall. Continuum takes a step back, revisiting a familiar Earth, and a familiar time before the great divide, a world where there are signs everywhere of things beginning to go sour:

"Alia, the Earth is a place where one can time travel in the same space and time. Go to the rich countries, they have plenty of everything. Food, clothing, infrastructure, machines, data, science, you name it. Then go to some poorer parts of the world바카라�they actually exist in another age and time. This utter disparity and how it continues, and is even growing바카라�it is amazing. The disparity and division in human existence is mind-boggling, more so the way males continue to colonise females. This fracture is bound to split wide open. How is it that no one can see it?바카라� Where Shanker scores over many other sci-fi writers is how, especially in Continuum, she does not let the theme overshadow her storytelling: her characters are familiar, complex, credible and full of nuance and surprise. The sci-fi element is also subtle, fading into the background most of the time, without the usual show of glitz and gadgetry. What we get is a feel of small-town India where young techies are busy living their lives, young women fighting their battles at home, and at work contending with the sort of trolls who would target a dating app. We also get a look at the time of COVID, and the lockdown, and see in it the start of a world heading for the other shocks that will be its undoing.

But for me, as a linguist, the thing that gives Continuum its greatest spark of realism is Shanker바카라�s use of language. Not just in the dialogue, the narration too conjures up a sense of India. A flavour; a way of using English that comes naturally and is Indian; and, treating it like something that belongs to us. This is no clone of the American English we are used to seeing in science fiction. There are moments when Shanker바카라�s turns of phrase call up images of IAS officers commenting on a file. And one pauses, and smiles: 바카라�Was she admitting to being something different? The way she expressed all her thoughts they seemed to mesh with each other into no final assertion. Samar sat still and experienced the moment, her head on his shoulder and the proximity did not tell him much. He could not decipher answers to his innumerable questions in that moment or in what she said.바카라� The end of the book is the beginning of another journey. We can see ahead in the distance, light-years away, another book that will take the story forward. The baby steps into a very large universe that we saw in Ascendance are growing in confidence and feel for the craft as they walk the different landscape of Continuum. I look forward to Shanker바카라�s next book in this series, and to meeting these characters again, and curling up with her unique style of science fiction.

(Views expressed are personal)

Peggy Mohan is a Delhi-based linguist and writer. Her most recent book is Father Tongue, Motherland (Penguin Random House, 2025)

(This appeared in Print as 'When Times Collide')