Tanushree Podder’s latest book dreams up possibilities in harnessing climate as a weapon

When asked how her ‘Cli-Fi’ — or climate fiction — novel came about, Tanushree Podder recalls the long walks she took with her husband Ajoy. “This is the first novel we have written together,” says the author who has about two dozen fiction and non-fiction titles to her credit, “So we would spend a lot of time just walking, ideating and threshing out the story, the plotlines, the language.”

The book, Decoding the Feronia Files (Readomania), looks at what would happen if governments decide to weaponise weather, creating storms, earthquakes and more when and where they deem fit. It’s not entirely a figment of the couple’s imagination, but the result of a deep vortex of online articles, research papers and other readings that Tanushree had stumbled into “when researching for some other book”. She personally believes that this is a distinct possibility in the near future, or might already be in discreet use.

“Ajoy was in the Army, and was one of eight mountaineers trained by the Gulmarg-based High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) that I have mentioned in the book,” says Tanushree. This made him an even more valuable sounding board than he usually is for most of her books, she says, adding that the original story was supposed to be about HAWS’ training, the Himalayas and war machinery. “It was by accident that I found some information about weather modification. We dived into it out of curiosity.”

The end result of that dive of exploration is Decoding the Feronia Files, which, Tanushree says, blurs the lines between fact and fiction to narrate a thriller. The book takes the reader to Pakistan, the US, New Delhi’s corridors of power and snow-laden Himalayan peaks, roping in characters from the CIA and High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program research facility and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence as well as sleeper agents from Russia into its plot.

Needless to say, intrigue and murder abound, but only in the latter half. That is when things really start to get more exciting and even the dialogue gets more crisp, bereft of the somewhat alienating attempts at grandiose, formal conversation that were needed to explain diplomatic power play and scientific technicalities. In the second half, it’s just another thrilling little story, good to curl up with after dinner.