In memory of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, I would like to introduce you to one of the first sci-fi novels I have ever read, “Preshit” (Preshit: Marathi – A man sent, by someone or from something) by Dr. Jayant Narlikar.
A young couple finds a baby abandoned in a field, and adopt him. Growing up, the boy starts to display signs of extraordinary intelligence. When he derives a theoretical solution for “travelling salesman problem”, as an assignment, his teacher and doctor tell him to try for an international school for gifted children. Reaching the school, he continues to shine, while finding close friends, and love.
He develops a liking for astronomy and has no problem in getting a “summer internship” at Project Cyclops. He finds out about two scientists who, years ago, probably had made contact with some alien planet. Meanwhile, his girlfriend and his best friend at school find out his nightmares may be the result of some repressed memories, and his “interest” may have some deeper secret.
Although the start of the storyline reminds you of Superman, the similarities start and end there. This “Kal-el” does not develop any superpowers, except maybe showing super-intelligence. But the book is more about science fiction, questions about alien contact than about anything else. Which is why the characters are more human than found in Superman. The actual time is in recent future, with trips to the moon, and on-screen classrooms etc. Then again, the kids may go to a special school for geniuses, but the new kids are still ragged. Of course, the ragging assignments are not what you expect to see in any other school (I seriously spent some months of my life visualizing how you can pass through a A4-sized paper).
This is one of those books where every event is one more step “towards zero”. That is, the last few pages contain almost the entire essence (at least, the most important point) of the book. In this case, the point is one of the main questions asked whenever the quest for alien intelligence is mentioned. Of course, the characters in the book finally come down on one side of the argument, but still, it does leave a lingering thought in reader’s mind.
By his own admission, Dr. Jayant Narlikar writes for spreading awareness about scientific subjects in common readers. This makes his books (including the non-fictional ones) a great point for introducing scientific concepts in simple language, especially to kids (look at his biography and you will see why). Of course, the books fall mostly under kids (or YA) category, but still, even adults will enjoy the humour and the storytelling.
P.S. If you read this properly, you will notice some major things missing from this review. That is because I have written this entirely from my memories of the book. So, any reader is welcome, indeed requested to correct me when my memory seems to go AWOL.
Quote of The Day:
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
- Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)
Subscribe to “Lazy Habits of Thinking”
Click here for other reviews of Marathi books, children’s book reviews and Sci-fi book reviews.
Subscribe to RSS feed
- Harry Turtledove
- Robert Jordan
Indeed one of the best book read by me, i remember i could not able to sleep for two or three days after reading this book. The naration of the events and each and every moment explicitely presented infact i remember i could easily able to see the characters doing the acts or speaking the lines from the book as if i am watching a movie and that use to just thrill me. OOh i just remembered those fabulas days after reading preshit.
The awsome story line with lively characters truly a master piece.
The concept of monster star which is absrobing the matter from its own orbit and thus slowly increasing its own gravitational power to consume the planets around its own solar system far away from our earth. In this solar system lies the planet i think its name was “Panchak” where the much advanced civilisation similar to our human but much much advaned in terms of the brain development and scientific deveoplents too use to live. They identified that their sun is going to absorb their planet and hence they start searching for the other planet where they can take their civilisation. With the advanced equipments they find out our earth. They prepare a team of their representatives for a non returning voyage to earth. This team almost completes the journey to earth but unfortunately few hours before reaching earth their space shuttle hits a astroid. During this collision the primary oxygen generation unit of space shuttle gets damaged. With shortage of oxygen the crue of ship decides to send smallest memeber of the crue to earth. And here comes our hero in light. This hero is a small child which borns in the voyage it self as result of love and marrage of two members of crue. I think their names were “Taru” and “Maru”. Now “Taru” father of the child prepares the child to send to earth. As advanced civilisation these people were able to store the information in the brain like a computer hard disk. So “Taru” stores the entire information regarding the location, details of their planet so that this child in future can return back and help their people. Finally he keeps the child in a special rubber ballon full with the remaining oxygen and keeps a tag to identify him. After realeasing the ballon this wonderboy start his journy to earth.
This was details of chapter 1.
hay where i can get the pdf version of this book…
Plz tell the website…