Arundhati Roy’s ‘The Algebra of Infinite Justice’ looks like any typical paperback when you see just the spine as the book is placed on a rack in the library. But how misleading that first impression is! (Remember, never judge a book by its cover?) Pick it up and the weight of the book does make itself known. Ok, so it is not your off-the-shelf paperback. That much is clear. But the title generates enough curiosity to not put the book back after the initial cursory glance. What is the deal? Where did this un-ordinary title come from?

And so you turn the cover. The font is inviting and the acknowledgement page is a pleasure to read. That decides it and the book is in, no longer a hesitant guest but a well-recognised member of my reading-list. And what a personality it has! So there was something to hearsay. More than anything, what struck me as I went through this collection of strongly-worded essays was the voice that rang out in each sentence, in each incisive adjective, in each chiselled turn of phrase. There was no way this book could be read without listening to its voice.

And yet, equally striking was the fact that the voice did not impose itself upon the reader; instead it made me question my attitude towards society and its problems. It made me ask myself whether my attitude was apathy or resignation, whether there was something I could and should do with regard to social issues, whether there was any point in trying to make a difference. In that sense, the book hardly gave any conclusions. That is the reader’s job. Only mature books can do this.

Whether the essay is on India’s nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1998 or on the US attack on Afghanistan post-9/11 or on the Godhra carnage, the voice speaks loudly and clearly against injustice meted out to the poor and the unprivileged. Even as the book talks about the urgent need to stop the arms race, it speaks about the poignant ‘alms race’ that takes place as the US drops miserably-few food packets on Afghanistan soil. In a land littered with mines, even the race for food can be fatal.

The Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada is dissected to reveal the vested interests that populate its grisly innards, so that the promise of water for drinking and irrigation rings hollow in the face of the devastation and displacement that the project has led to. When the points of injustice are laid out one after the other, it makes you wonder whether any form of development is worth it. Is any form of development truly sustainable?

The title is derived from the planned name of the US ‘operation’ in Afghanistan. The offensive against the Taliban aimed at finding the perpetrators of 9/11 was initially proposed to be termed ‘Infinite Justice’ and only the qualms of hurting the sentiments of a section of the population led to a change of name to ‘Enduring Freedom’, says the book. And what a name! Even today the people of Afghanistan are enduring the so-called freedom brought by bombs on a land which had nothing worth bombing to start with. (The book, of course, states this in a much more powerful voice.)

All in all, not a book that you can read slouching on the bed with a cup of coffee in your other hand. It simply makes you sit up. But it’s worth it.