The cast
People
Composites — invented individuals assembled from thousands of documented, real accounts — so that the numbers are experienced before they are argued. No composite depicts a real person.
Savitri
Runs a provision shop in central India. 2013: 'the money is shrinking.' 2016: 'the money has stopped working.'
The prices behave. The money I no longer fully trust.Read their chapter →A
Ashok
Thirty years at a nationalised bank: lend and look away; recover and cover yourself; profitable and bored.
The machine is fixed. The machine matters less.Read their chapter →R
Raju
A tile layer from Bihar in Surat. Sends money home with his thumb; his grandmother's worn thumb fails the ration machine.
Read their chapter →IIqbal
A Delhi truck driver. Delhi–Mumbai went from five days to under two. He has carried a colleague's coffin home.
Read their chapter →MMeena
Eastern UP. A toilet, a cylinder she rations, five kilos of free grain — and a son who still takes the train to Surat.
Better, yes. Enough, no. My son will tell you the rest.Read their chapter →B
Balwinder
Twelve acres near Sangrur. Drove to Delhi's border at 52 and stayed thirteen months.
Read their chapter →RRavi
26, BA, five years of government exams in Prayagraj; delivers food between attempts.
Ask me in October.Read their chapter →S
Shameena
A Kerala nurse in Kuwait. Her daughter came home from Kharkiv; her son's H-1B now costs $100,000.
From here, it shines. I send money to the parts that don't.Read their chapter →H
Harbans Singh
Retired Subedar Major near the Gurdaspur border. Heard war in 1971, 2008 and May 2025.
Read their chapter →GGanesh
A panna pramukh in Kanpur — one page of the voter list, thirty households, one app.
Read their chapter →MMeera
A Delhi lawyer. One cabinet: the bonds verdict, an untried UAPA client, appeals from deleted voters.
Read their chapter →RRamesh & Aslam
Neighbours for thirty years. One lit forty-one diyas for the temple; one keeps his papers in a trunk.
Read their chapter →RRekha
An ASHA in Madhya Pradesh. Begged for oxygen in 2021; vaccinated her village that winter.
Read their chapter →RRamdas
Loads coal in Singrauli. His son-in-law cleans solar panels at Bhadla.
Read their chapter →AAnjali
ISRO propulsion engineer, in the room when Vikram touched the Moon. Her brother's private rocket reached orbit.
Read their chapter →RRamkali
Rajasthan, 2006: the first government document with her own photograph — a job card.
Read their chapter →