Although the title of the novel, পোড়া বাড়ি (Pora Bari), which literally translates into “Burnt House”, is rather uninspiring, I bought the book because of its subtitle: “A Political Novel Based on Science”. It made me imagine that the novel would be a combination of political thriller and sci-fi, not a usual mixture. After reading the book, I was partly disappointed, but I also found the story significant, disturbing, and thought-provoking. I will tell you what I found disappointing in a moment, but first, let me tell you what is fascinating about the slim Bangla novel. But even before that, I must say a few words about the author and the style in which the novel has been written. Setting the context, as they say!
The author Rajarshi Raychaudhuri, who is a physician based in England, has garnished his narrative with interesting scientific insights into the incidents and processes he describes. (For example, why the leeches’ bite doesn’t sting.) Because of the scientific inquisitiveness and rigour of the author, while I read the novel, I knew I was reading science, not hocus pocus. (If I may take a short detour, even an author of Amitav Ghosh’s calibre wrote in Ghost Eye that once, the fish in a small glass aquarium jumped around so violently that the aquarium fell and shattered into pieces. Ghosh’s editors ought to have told him that Sir Isac Newton stopped the fish from doing such stupid acts about 350 years ago, when he published his Laws of Motion, the third of which says that when a fish hits the wall of an aquarium, its glass wall it hits back with an equal force; the two forces neutralise each other.)
A point to note is that the novel is a collection of more than 50 brief chapters, each one of which is either a report, a document, a speech, or events in the lives of the central characters. All these often-unconnected narratives are held together with the string of an ongoing disaster we are living through, the climate crisis. So it’s cli-fi, not sci-fi. I didn’t know what a novel constructed in this manner is called. (A minor disadvantage of not doing literature major at college.) Well, they are called docufiction or docu-novel, I have just found out.
Initially, the disjointed chapters didn’t create much curiosity in me to read on because I knew the following chapter would be on an entirely different topic. But slowly, the story gripped me and I had to read the book in a day, which says something about the writing skills of the author.
My Collin’s Dictionary says dystopia is “an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be”. Sadly, the term no longer refers to anything IMAGINARY. We live in an oxymoron, a dystopic reality, where the climate crisis might already have gone beyond the tipping point; the human race might actually be hurtling towards obliteration as you read this. Yet, the movers and shakers of the world, who seem unmovable about the impending crisis, are continuing in their relentless pursuit of wealth and power at any cost. This has led to an asymmetric battle between the coalition of big money and state power on one side and a group of scientists and climate activists on the other. Scorched Earth is a fictionalised account of that conflict taking place in the United Kingdom under a Labour government.
In India, the problem doesn’t matter much because of two reasons. First, our capacity to absorb incremental pain is infinite, and second, we are far too busy with the basic issues of roti-kapda-makaan to worry about the future. But it’s a different story in Europe, which has been suffering hot summers like never-before in recent years, leading to frequent heat strokes among Europeans, some of whom go out in sweltering heat wearing suits. Also, given the heightened summer, tropical mosquitos Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti have reached parts of Europe and have begun spreading dengue and encephalitis there, though in a limited scale so far. The problem isn’t as telegenic as say, the glacier collapse and avalanche in Nepal on 26 August 2026, but is an equally dangerous facet of the same problem. The author, being a practicing emergency physician in England, writes about these issues with an authenticity that only a background in science can offer. I have learned a lot from the novel.
Let me now tell you the disappointing part: It is linear. After the problem has been described, every chapter carries some good news that tells you that the underdog is going to win the battle, although the bigger picture of the war remains unchanged. The bad guy gets caught by sheer chance. Nothing happens to tilt the balance and make you worry about the outcome. Although there is not much thrill in this thriller, it is eminently readable because of the treasure of scientific information it presents in the common man’s language.
Before ending the
review, let me recall that Yuval Noah Harari has recently identified the early
21st century, (specifically the decades
before the recent global conflicts) as the most peaceful and prosperous time in
human history. Harari says that for many previous decades, large-scale war
between superpowers became unlikely, and natural death became far more common
than death by violence. He adds that the human race achieved a major milestone
when governments collectively spent more money on healthcare (around 10.5%)
than on defence (6–7%) for the first time in history. But unfortunately, the
happy time seems to have died young. If that hadn’t happened, this post-COVID
dystopic novel wouldn’t have been written.
Bengaluru / 19-22 September
2026
