'Dystopia is pornographic, Olamina. You see it and shiver but it's also kind of fun because it's happening somewhere else, to someone else, you know? It requires distance. Some of us are actually sitting in the fucking middle of it and we may never learn to care in time. This isn’t dystopia. This is reality.’ [loc. 2347]
Delhi, the near future: Joey (Bijoyini Roy) is an Associate Reality Controller, running the Flow (live, curated, multichannel videostream) of Indi, a popular entertainment Icon who also happens to be her ex. She hires Rudra, a family friend who's being pressured into abetting his family's exploitative concerns: this sparks a chain of events that open Joey's eyes to the inequity, corruption and superficiality of the society in which she lives.
That's a poor summary of a complex and dynamic novel: I had the same feeling of sensory overload and hurtling plot that I recall from early cyberpunk novels, and the same desire to keep reading, to immerse myself in this new milieu. Basu's Delhi is far from idyllic: constant, AI-driven surveillance, Residents' Associations enforcing local restrictions, water shortages, deadly heat, riots and violence, caste and class, and the ubiquitous 'smarttatt' assistant, Narad, that probably has Siri somewhere in its ancestry.
Joey's parents look back to the Years Not to Be Discussed -- basically our own present day -- before which it was safe to express controversial opinions, go outside without a mask, et cetera. "... they'd known the end times were coming but hadn't known they'd be multiple choice." Joey and Rudri know the world has changed, but -- being privileged, liberal upper-middle-class types (I do not pretend to understand the interaction of class and caste) -- are only vaguely aware of the dissent and revolution bubbling under the city's multicultural, media-focussed milieu. But the resistance is growing. Protests are advertised via hidden QR codes in kolams, including their 'potential bloodshed rating'; Joey's parents' housekeeper, Laxmi, shows Joey the Flows of illegal immigrants and street people; and Rudri is transformed from scion of a slave-trading family to ... something quite different.
Chosen Spirits was an immensely satisfying read, despite its uncomforting depiction of the future. It's thoroughly and joyfully Indian -- cultural and regional concerns focus on China and to some extent Africa, not Europe or America: "we never thought America was better than us" -- and full of unfamiliar words (kuàizi, laifu, pyravikar, saptaparni, zenana). It acknowledges the ecology of modern media: "asteroid belts of stans, shippers, fan-fiction Flowers, re-enactors and deep-fake pornographers". Its inequalities are intersectional: race, class, gender, caste and more. And it is thoroughly science-fictional, with notions that'd anchor a simpler novel simply mentioned in passing. Highly recommended.
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