The book is an account of instrument making in a modern Indian scientific laboratory. It uses qualitative research methods such as interviews, historical analysis and laboratory ethnography, to present the micro-details of this enterprise, the counter-intuitive methods employed, and the un-expected material, human and intellectual resources that were mobilised in the process. It locates scientific research and innovation within the social, political and cultural context of a laboratory's physical location and asks important questions of the dominant narratives of innovation that remain fixated on quantitative metrics of publishing, patenting and generating commerce.