States of Dystopia: Imagining Future Indias in Ruchir Joshi’s The Last Jet-Engine Laugh

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the ways in which Ruchir Joshi’s The Last Jet-Engine Laugh (2001), set a few decades into the twenty-first century, deconstructs the processes of systematisation that are intrinsic to the Indian state—indeed, to all modern states—and its social forms.¹ Unlike earlier examples of postcolonial dystopic writing, which often critiqued particular “isms”—imperialism or chauvinism, for instance—this novel refuses the very possibility of ideological consistency.² The world of the novel invokes a set of problems, including violence and environmental degradation, which do not exist within the boundaries of causal relationships. The Last Jet-Engine Laugh represents Joshi’s first foray into the world of fiction. Though not well known in the West, in India he was already an established filmmaker and journalist.