It never ceases to amaze how openly Indians have welcomed computers into their lives. We embrace those little boxes as symbols of efficiency, venerate them as dispensers of knowledge, even worship them. That’s why it’s completely normal that the author talks about taking “darshan” of an ageing, giant IBM mainframe at Osmania University in 1962. “The prasadam we all got was a set of punched cards,” he adds in all seriousness. Quaint—but remember, there were very few computers those days (1,000 systems in all for the entire country in 1977). That’s precisely why this book scores: it explores the terrain before the garages, barsatis and two-wheelers today’s software czars started off with, and nicely details the government’s “benevolent hand” in the birth of India’s IT industry.