Space. Life. Matter.: The Coming of Age of Indian Science

by Hari Pulakkat

How do you build a scientifically and technologically strong modern nation with limited means and resources? Indian scientists faced this challenge seven decades ago when the country became independent and confronted a world rapidly advancing in science and technology. In the years that followed, they battled poor funding and archaic regulations to build India's science infrastructure from scratch. This fascinating
narrative captures the story of the struggles and triumphs of these leaders of science and the world-class institutions they founded.

From the cosmic-ray experiments at the Kolar Gold Fields to ISRO's stunning space observatory built under severe constraints, from the construction of one of the world's largest radio telescopes in Ooty to the development of structural biology at IISc and, most recently, the significant contributions of the country's scientific institutions towards tackling a global pandemic - Space. Life. Matter. brings to readers the path-breaking advances made by India's scientists to original research and what they mean to the nation's progress.

Deeply informed, enlightening and inspiring, this singular, comprehensive account of the pride of place that Indian science occupies in the world is essential reading for all.

Genres: Science, India, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2021

About the author

Hari Pulakkat is a science journalist based in Bengaluru and the winner of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Popularization of Science, 2020. He has spent three decades of his career writing for The Economic Times and Businessworld. He is the editor of Shaastra, a science and technology magazine published by IIT Madras.

Reviews

[Jagriti Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's start this with a story.

It was 1940s. India was a recently independent, poor country. Even in that era of freedom movement, partition and turmoil some prominent scientists were representing India on the global front. Their number was small and they were doing their best. It wasn't enough though. Progress was stunted without the advancement in science and technology. We needed infrastructures, funds and some people with unshakable willpower. We needed dreamers.

This book is about those dreamers, those ambitious men and women who were willing to build a nation from ground zero.

Homi J. Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, Govind Swarup, C. N. R. Rao, Man Mohan Sharma - you might have heard their names before. They were some of the big enablers of our country, they were the pioneers of scientific research of independent India. Each one of them left a promising career behind in abroad when they came back to their homeland. With meager funds and next to no availability of proper establishments or equipments they set about changing the future of India's scientific research.

There's a plethora of such inspiring stories in this book, all inter-connected, all tracing the dots of our history, laying out a blueprint for modern times. You might have read the biographies of the scientists mentioned in the book or about their achievements and the projects they worked on. But let me assure you this, you've never read a single book which encompasses their lives, their struggles, their passion and blends these into three perfect concoctions - space, life and matter.

It's a unique book which keeps science at the forefront throughout the narrative, never letting any individual lead the story, even though there are multitudes of biographies threaded into this. Author has been mindful about keeping the theories light and comprehensible for everyone, making this book perfect for the curious minds of all ages. It's unprecedented, refreshing and a perfect addition to the non-fiction corner of your shelves. It's highly recommended from my end.

Thanks to @hachette_india for the review copy!

[Vikrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

We need to revive the scientific temperament, which is much needed in this land yet again to beat the superstitions & false narratives.. thanks Hari for putting so many years to draft this saga of India's great adventure with science & exploration amidst the challenges

[thebookwormcritic · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW 🚀

Book - SPACE LIFE MATTER
Author - Hari Pulakkat
Genre - Non Fiction
Publication - @hachette_india

Review :

👨‍🔬 An amazing book for all those who look reading about space , inventions and the coming age of technology .

👨‍🔬 Space .Life .Matter , begins with the kolar gold mines and the journey from there till the stunning space observatory under Dr.Homi Bhabha.

👨‍🔬 The book actually made me take from all those scientist who had their contribution in making India a scientifically and technologically modern nation .

👨‍🔬 From the making of largest telescope in Ooty , to the development of satellite .
From establishisng Astrostat - India's first space telescope to making India a pioneer in chemical engineering .
From achieving anti cancer drugs to knowing about the structural biology and molecular physics .
This book is an blueprint of all the achievements that makes what India is today .

👨‍🔬 A fascinating read about India leading scientists , inventions and the coming of age of Indian science .
I absolutely loved this read and highly recommend this to everyone .

P.S - thankyou @hachetteindia for sending me a review copy . I am totally overwhelmed .

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

[Aradhana Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a somewhat contradictory perception around Indian science – it is simultaneously pioneering and innovative, and yet also stagnant and redundant.

This contradiction comes to light in Space. Life. Matter, as the author takes us through the development of Indian science. He explores this journey through the eyes of several brilliant individuals, focusing on their unique stories, which in turn shaped a much larger narrative.

Pulakkat makes advanced science palatable even to the less scientifically inclined, such as myself. Through the course of the book, the reader becomes a fly on the wall, watching Indian minds ask the big questions and then unearth the answers, step by step.

However, insights about things other than science also come to light, such as the fact that it seems to be a source of pride among many scientists that they were able to change the world despite meagre resources. What does this say about the country’s attitude towards funding scientific research?

Many of the scientists in the book were drawn to India by persuasion from others – a colleague working on an interesting project, domestic circumstances, or nationalist fervour. What does that say about the allure of the Indian scientific world?

And finally, the most glaring social commentary in this book of science is the women featured – or rather, the lack thereof. In the entire book I counted two female scientists in a sea of males. Why is that? Is there a lack of women drawn to science, or (more likely) a lack of equal opportunity? Pulakkat gives us a glimpse of this landscape in one particular narrative, wherein a woman applicant was denied admission for a Ph.D. due to the worry that she would ‘get married and leave midway’.

Overall, this was an insightful read, both from a scientific and social perspective, and I recommend it for those who are curious about India’s story in the global scientific community.

[Srishti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hari Pulakkat, a prolific science journalist and the winner of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Popularization of Science 2020, takes us on a tour of some of the milestone events of post independent India in science and technology. After the country's independence the means and methods to build a scientifically and technologically strong nation were meagre. The world wasn't moving at a similar pace, however. Hari Pulakkat has done justice to narrating the chronicles of India's foremost leaders of science and their battles, struggles and victories in the field.

The gripping narrative holds the reader in thrall without getting into the sentimental complicacies. The book begins with an account of a village named Kolar, which in a few decades transformed into Kolar Gold Fields (KGF); a town with exceptional technology and infrastructure. The British had transformed the place into an impenetrable fortress. After the British Raj came to it's end, in 1951 KGF had three young visitors: B.V. Sreekantan, a Ph.D student at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Bombay; Raja Ramanna, who would later become the architect of India's first nuclear test in 1974 at Pokhran; and Bibha Chaudhury, a young physicist who had just finished her Ph.D with the Nobel Prize winning Patrick Blackett in Manchester. The chronicles of the cosmic-ray experiments at the Kolar Gold Fields, building of ISRO's stellar space observatory, the making of the world's largest radio telescopes in Ooty, the advancements in structural biology at IISc and the recent landmark event – the contributions towards addressing and deftly handling a worldwide pandemic. Space. Life. Matter. is a riveting and inspiring narrative of Indian science!

[Omkar (BookmanOmkar) · Rating 4 out of 5]

People ask me this question "Why are you building radio telescopes in a poor country?" I ask them, "Why are you building temples?" If temples are relevant, searching for the mysteries of the universe is also relevant, says Govind Swarup, Pioneer of Radio astronomy in India.
- Hari Pulakkat, SPACE LIFE MATTER

Space life matter is an interesting and energising book that narrates India's development in the fields of Space research, chemical engineering and research and biology. It takes us through scientific expeditions that our nation's some of the greatest minds have endured for making India match with the pace of rapidly advancing scientific fields.

This book gives a good insight into the life of researchers and engineers, their upbringing's, family backgrounds and their discoveries and innovations that made India's spirit of science thrive through unfavourable periods laden with poor fundings and age-old regulations. I love the depth to which the author has researched to bring these stories. I wish it was presented in a more elaborated form so that we were able to get a more detailed understanding. It's an easy book to read but it needs interest and a good knowledge of science and technology to feel the impact of the accounts provided in the book.

Overall it was a very intriguing, inspiring and food-for-a-curious-mind type of book. I highly recommend it to the science nerds, especially to the Indian ones.

[Vidya Swamy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe it or not, India is the only country to have created advanced satellite manufacturing facilities inside asbestos sheds. European Space Agency (ESA) engineers were shaken by the chaotic conditions at Peenya, an industrial township near Bangalore. The sheds leaked during rains. Suburban buses didn’t go to Peenya; long-distance buses didn’t halt there. Employees stepped on stones on muddy roads during monsoon. The nearest tea stall was two kilometers away. This is where U.R. Rao, head of the satellite programme at the Space Science and Technology Centre, rented six sheds and equipped them to build India’s first satellite in just two-and-a-half years – a global feat. As their fame spread, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited it. So did space scientists from around the world. Peenya’s success story mirrors the Indian scientific establishment’s rise from modest beginnings when scientists worked on shoe-string budgets with no government support. This remarkable story is most aptly told by science journalist Hari Pulakkat.

-- M.R. Narayan Swamy

[Arpit Srivastava · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very precisely, informatively, inspiring and nerdly written. This book provides many inlfuencing stories needed for the poeple who are pursuing phD or are planning to or the ones who have done it. I enjoyed reading it and got very much out of it being none of those. Examples of people who were failure in studies, much of science in various areas such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, even biology/medical, harware stuff, innovation, progressing ISRO and other organizations and institutions which are related in various fields like these and all the people involved in it and their backgrounds is what the main focus of the book has been all along.

It's written in a very fluid manner and skimming through the technical stuff (if you not interested in those parts), you will never feel left out or bored because it is like a mix of many short stories on certain projects or of specific group of people and how they all got together forming an organization coming from a completely different background and education fields. No one is the protagonist here, haha! Phew!
They switch with different stories pretty quick so it's sustainable. But if you are not into so much science and history or science's history in Indian context, you might would want to read the book in small quantities. Nothing is dragged and everything mentioned is necessary to entertain every type of person reading this book.

Lastly, this book is neither the praise and feel-proud of India's progress in science book nor it ditches anyone or any country or shows off that they outdid in any way. But, a wholesome one which includes failures, delays, loss of many great people, faults and holes their plans and world view perspectives. So, anyone can read it and get something or more out of it. It promotes education, talent, mindset of different people, positive work environment and of course - Space, Life and Matter:)

[Vasanthi Hariharan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that this book is important.
I've had the quintessential Indian science education from 9th-12th grade. I don't recall there being even one scientific process named after an Indian scientist or a discussion to inspire that question; not even a footnote in the NCERT textbook. What I wish to highlight here is not a nationalistic sentiment but a profound personal disbelief that if not for buildings named after them, I wouldn't have recognised a single name in this book, despite their momentous contribution to science and research in India and globally. For what it shines a light on, Space.Life.Matter is a must-read for every researcher and every student of science, regardless of their age and career. It is insightful, providing a unique, personal view into the predicament of researchers in India post Independence using the individual stories and perspective of several scientists. Pulakkat sets the background perfectly with his narration.

However, I do think it is strange that only 2-3 female scientists were highlighted. Either there is a lack of distinguished female scientists in India (which I find very hard to believe as the book was published recently in 2021) or there has been an omission. Either situation is dire and disappointing. If the lack of funding for science is the conspicuous mantra of this book, then the unaddressed lack of representation is the glaring gap in literature.

My critique is further two-fold: narrative and yes, explain science like I'm five years old.
Space.Life.Matter can be described as a compilation of chapters from the biographies of all the scientists in the spotlight, which never really gives you any time to process one story before Pulakkat, randomly, quickly and haphazardly, jumps into the next. Out of the three parts that form the title, the "Space" segment of the book was the most detailed and coherent. In comparison, the "Matter" and "Life" segments were relatively short and seem hastily edited.
As someone who does not actively research and work in the field of science and technology, I found the technicalities of the research (always briefly explained by Pulakkat for context) very hard to understand. While an engineering graduate or PhD student in physics might appreciate the attention to detail, I couldn't and I found that it broke the flow several times. As I read in one of the reviews here: this book did turn out to be digestible only in short bites.

[Rini Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal read.I loved every bit of it. It makes me want to visit the so many telescopes which these amazing scientists built with the least amount of money they got. Thanks to Hari Pulakkat ,the struggles and achievements faced by this phenomenal generation has been well penned. This is the kind of history ,I want my child to learn. a definite keeper in my library without a doubt. It is sad to see the state of government institutions including the one where I studied which could not sow the urge to see the distant space. Such examples are very well captured in this book without doubt.

[Anshuman Singh 'त्रिशंकु' · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aptly named, the book beautifully chronicles the growth of science in India through short biographies of some pioneering yet lesser known scientists in the country. It highlights the struggle, grit and perseverance of the scientists to build world-class research institutions and a scientific ecosystem that, now, is playing a strong role in solving crucial problems for not only the country but humanity in general. A must read.