Not all journeys are measured in miles or milestones. Some unfold in the quiet spaces between ideas, in the pull of ancient stars, in the whisper of a thought that refuses to leave. This chapter is about one such journey—my attempt to make sense of the universe using the only tools I truly trust: curiosity, intuition, and imagination. If the earlier parts of my memoir describe the world I moved through, this part reveals the world that moved through me.
At some point in my career I had identified three specific goals in my life. First I had to get my son Wrahool into an engineering college, second to have a certain amount of money in the bank and third to write at least one book. The first two were not too difficult or unusual but the third one would be for me a major milestone that would leave my footprints in the sands of Time. Time with a capital T.
When I was born, the Moon was in Dhanu Rashi and within Dhanu, it was in the Mula Nakshatra that is ruled by Ketu. Those who follow Indic astrology would know that one of the most compelling qualities of Mula native is their association with deep-rootedness and a quest for truth. People born under this Nakshatra have an innate desire to uncover the underlying realities of life, often delving into subjects that others might shy away from. Their curiosity and fearlessness drive them to explore the depths of the human psyche, spirituality, and the mysteries of existence. This can lead them to careers in research, psychology, mysticism, or any field that involves digging beneath the surface. Interestingly, Dhanu or Sagittarius is also the constellation that houses, or rather points the way to the supermassive Black Hole, Sagittarius-A that lies at the centre, the heart, of the galaxy that we, and our solar system, are a part of. So there is something about Dhanu and Mula that drives me to the core of things -- spatial, temporal, psychic and spiritual.
Perhaps it was the influence of Ketu and Mula. Or perhaps it was the early inspiration from my father, who first introduced me to three fascinating topics, namely computers, genetics and Vedanta that I found my first trigger for the book that I had in mind. I decided to record my thoughts on how these three seemingly disparate ideas could be woven together into an explanation of the universe. The result was my first book, The Road to Psingularity, that I conceived on the 1st day of January 2000 at our garden house, Hill View, in Purulia.
Whether my arguments explaining the nature of the universe would hold up to close scrutiny would only be known to whoever reads the book, the one crucial observation that I had made was that the intelligence lies not in algorithms but in the pattern of data -- a fact that has been handsomely corroborated by the success of artificial neural network based systems that demonstrate human like behaviour.
Unfortunately, however good the book was in my eyes, it never found a home with any established publishing house and eventually I learnt of the incredible concept of Print-On-Demand. This allowed me to get my book out in print, first from the US company Lulu and then my personal favourite, Pothi of Bangalore.
But I realised soon enough, as had been pointed out by Godel to Bertrand Russel, that arriving at a logically complete description of anything significant is logically impossible. Godel had used the letter of mathematics to drive a stake through the spirit of the same and had showed that there would always be facts that are true but not provable. Hence the consciousness that I was to trying pin down and explain is no exception. One needs to break free from the cage of rationality and the way that I could think of to so would be to move into the domain of science fiction.
A creative urge is latent in most of us – more so in some than in others – and I am no exception. But creativity and imagination can and does outrun the confines of the environment in which the average sentient being operates. Unfortunately, this acts as a serious brake to the creative process. At this point there are two things that can happen. Either creativity is curbed and subsumed into frustration or – the happier solution – a new channel is found through an imaginary mindscape that lets wild ideas bubble through. This then is the fountainhead from which a million concepts pour forth and form a torrent that rushes forward – eroding all that is old and giving shape to forms that are new and unfamiliar – towards the great union with the infinite and the unknowable.
The initial torrents that gushed out as novels and short stories were perhaps too raw, too unrestrained in their philosophical and emotional intensity to find a place in the public domain. Crafted by an unacknowledged voice within me -- one that moved freely through the tangled intersections of desire, consciousness, and metaphysics -- these works dared to go where most minds hesitate. Unsurprisingly, they were lost in the shifting sands of Cyberia, scattered like forbidden verses across forgotten blogs or buried deep in the cold clouds of digital memory. And yet, I like to think of them as a secret garden behind a locked door -- overgrown, hidden from view, but still blooming quietly in some shadowed corner of the datasphere, awaiting the day the world finds the key.
But the one that survived and eventually saw the light of day was my first science fiction novel Chronotantra that envisaged a post-apocalyptic human society where Santhal girl from Eastern India makes it big as she -- as my doppelganger -- seeks to explore the mystery of human existence. Once again, I never found a publisher and went back to Pothi and the Kindle Direct Publishing program of Amazon. Within the family there was great excitement about this book and it was released by son, my daughter-in-law and my wife at the Art Institute of Chicago. This was where Swami Vivekananda had once mesmerised the world with his soaring explanation of Vedanta, one of the key ideas articulated in my very Chronotantra.
Chronotantra was quickly followed by Chronoyantra, its prequel and sequel and then there was a long hiatus. First the world was hit by the Chinese virus, Covid and in that great global pause, we lost three senior members of our family. First my mother, then in rapid succession, my father and mother in law. But even in all this, I had quietly been working on the paper that was eventually published as a patent as described elsewhere. This is where my legendary ability to connect dots revealed itself. I managed to weave the theme of the paper into the theme of Chronomantra, the third and hopefully the final volume my trilogy consisting of ChronoTantra, ChronYantra and ChronoMantra - or collectively, ChronoTYM.
In Indic phraseology, tantra is the principle, a yantra is a device to explore this principle and a mantra is the code that unlocks both the tantra and its yantra. My science fiction trilogy recreates this framework where the first novel Chronotantra defines the contours of a futuristic society, the second, Chronoyantra, describes a device used to explore the genesis of this society, while the third, Chronomantra finally reveals the key, the Kalki Protocol - that unlocks the mystery.
This trilogy reveals the Kalki Protocol as the unseen force shaping a post-human civilization. It ensures that intelligence -- biological or artificial -- evolves not through conventional governance, but through the natural flow of consequence. Neither human nor machine-controlled, the protocol is the heart of the narrative, driving the transformation of society across Earth, Mars, and Titan into a self-regulating, post-hierarchical order.
This then is my magnum opus that portrays my vision of the future as seen through the lens of Sanatan Dharma. While I remain intensely proud of this trilogy it is yet to find a publisher who sees commercial value in this and possibly never will. However, thanks to social media -- Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram -- there has been a few copies that have been sold .though it remains largely within my circle of friends and colleagues. Hopefully, someone, somewhere, someday will recognize the value of this deeply personal creation -- and the books will find the audience they deserve.
But what next? The Road to pSingularity is now twenty five years old and many bits of information have flown down the digital pathways that encircle the world today. Perhaps all this will return someday, reborn in a form that is born of knowledge and shaped by time, as a new edition of pSingularity -- or should I call it Chronopanishad? The answer lies, as always, in the womb of futurity.
