Varna Sri Raman

Who she is

Varna Sri Raman is a development economist and licensed social justice worker. She holds a post-doctoral qualification in school innovations from Harvard and a PhD from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and is a Dr Manmohan Singh Fellow. She is Managing Director of Pinpoint Ventures Advisory and a co-founder of ImpactMojo and StoryWell Books, the independent Indian press that published this novel.

Her subject is measurement, policy and power — unpaid care, budget allocations for informal workers, welfare schemes and who they actually reach — written about from the inside. She writes at PolicyGrounds.press, and carries bylines across the Indian press, among them the Times of India and The Wire. idealog.works is the fuller record.

The economics and the fiction are not separate careers. This novel is set in 2075 and argues about heat, waste, water and who is left carrying the cost of all three; that is the same argument, made in a form that lets a fourteen-year-old in Pune pick it up.

Forthcoming

The Measurement Trap: India's Quest for Social Progress Through Eight Decades, from Routledge. It reads India's statistical systems — the census, the sample surveys, the national accounts, 1947 to 2027 — as political institutions, and argues that what a state measures, it governs, and what it leaves uncounted, it leaves unattended. There is a companion site at whatcounts.in.

Her other books

She illustrated all of these. They are children's books from StoryWell, and all of them are on Amazon. Each one carries the things StoryWell puts in every title — word lists, activities, pages to draw on, and notes for the teacher or parent reading it aloud.

Bulbuls and the Big Big Breeze — by Papri Sri Raman

A pair of bulbuls decide to build their first ever nest in a rather unsafe location. A storm knocks it down — and what happens to the babies is a heart-warming story of human and animal kindness.

Happy Lemon — by Papri Sri Raman

A citrusy, lemony book. Join Lima as she shares her fresh tangy self, from the tree to an epic summer-cooler — an introduction to the joys of the humble Indian lemon.

Kalyani's Ant Problem — written with Papri Sri Raman

Geometry taught through kolam. Kalyani and her grandmother chase ants across the threshold and rediscover the shapes in a form that was already doing the maths, with the ecology of the practice explained alongside it. For five to ten.

Rhythm Taal — by Papri Sri Raman

Musical instruments and the sounds they make, told from the point of view of a music-loving baby. A story of discovery and fun, and a way into sound and music for the very young.

Roar! — by Papri Sri Raman

A small tiger cub goes through the forest meeting creatures great and small. Sounds and movement for young kids, in warm earthy colour — an easy Sunday read.

This book

The Very Last Superhero is a speculative novel set in a climate-collapsed India of 2075, published by StoryWell Books Foundation in first edition 2026. It begins after the era of superheroes rather than during it, and its argument is that what survives collapse is not power but memory — held by ordinary people, animals, salvaged tech and archivists who did not stop.

On the Making is her own account of why she wrote it, printed in the book and reproduced here in full. It is the best short answer to what the novel is for.

Elsewhere

Her personal site is idealog.works. This site is about the book; that one is about her.

What is real in it

The Okhla waste-to-energy plant exists. The heat exists. The book is dedicated in part to someone fighting Delhi's waste-to-energy plants, and How to Help points at the people doing that work now.

Getting in touch

Write to her directly — about the book, a correction, a reader submission, or anything on this site that looks wrong.