A Flaw in the Plan 1/8 - The Marauder’s Map

“An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.” Worst life advice ever!

 

Chacha and I were driving down a beautiful stretch of road. Or at least as beautiful as it gets in rural West Bengal. By "beautiful," I mean the leaves had that extra slickness post-monsoon, glistening with the pride of not being drenched in smoky city air for a change.

 

‘Isn’t smoke supposed to be a tree’s favourite snack?’, I wondered. At least that’s what we were taught in school – trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, apparently. Too bad it’s only bad for humans.

 

Chacha jolted me back from my existential musings. ‘How much farther is it?’

Ah! The quintessential ‘it’. The ‘it’ for which we had made the 2-hour drive. He wouldn’t even call ‘it’ by its correct name.

‘It,’ I took a pause to let it sink in, ‘is around 30 minutes away.’

‘If the road exists,’ I added just to mix my pessimistic realism in Chacha’s eternal optimism.

 

Chacha had bought a piece of land years ago and had promptly forgotten about it. Happens to the best of us, right? Having nothing better to do during Covid, I tried to go over the old rusty family documents and estimate my inheritance. There was a pandemic out there after all. During this time I stumbled upon a bunch of deeds for this forgotten land which, according to the ancient scrolls, was next to a highway. And we all know, thanks to our grandfathers, that highway lands are like discovering gold under your bed.

I went into full detective mode. At first I tried hand-drawing the land by combining all the maps on the deeds – total disaster. Next I tried juxtaposing the plot map, mouza map, Google Satellite image, and maps from the deeds on top of each other. Slightly better, but still not usable. I couldn’t figure out the shape of the land. Finally, in a moment of part desperation and part nostalgia, I turned to the oldest and most loyal tool in my arsenal – MS Paint.

 

Most of the younger generation might not understand or appreciate the importance of MS Paint. Some of you might not even have a Windows computer. You have my condolences. For you never got to experience the might of MS Paint - the unsung hero of the 90s. Be it making a perfect rectangle or dive deep into Ayesha Takia’s… eyes. MS Paint was the answer to everything. And to those who are closer to my age and still cling to your Windows devices, I have one question – how’s your backache?

But I digress. With the precision of a surgeon I drew out the plot of land Chacha had so longingly ignored for years. And the masterpiece looked something like this:

No wonder Chacha forgot about it.

 

1.      Only a sliver of the land was connected to the highway

2.      That sliver wasn’t connected to the other pieces of the land

3.      Those other pieces of land weren’t connected to each other

4.      WHAT THE PHUCK!

 

Now don’t get me wrong. Of course the land was connected to other pieces of land. That is how land works. You don’t just have some land and then it ends. Galileo proved that wrong centuries ago. What I mean is that the bunch of land that Chacha owned was not connected to other pieces that he owned. It looked like scattered puzzle pieces from different boxes. Sure, the West Bengal mutation department had done a splendid job of listing the names of the landowners on their website. But knowing someone’s name isn’t enough if you intend to transact with them. A phone number would have been nice.

So it turns out some clever broker had convinced Chacha that he could acquire the whole plot. The land was once owned by the Nawab on Bengal who in 1727 gifted ‘it’ to a loyal subject – may his soul rest in piece. The loyal subject had four wives and a brood large enough to fill a small village. Fast forward through three centuries of inheritance, squabbles, unresolved disputes, legal battles, and a fair bit of incest, the land was now owned by an army of descendants who could not agree on dinner, let alone sell their land. I guess that’s what 300 years of procreation does to family values. Since ‘it’ was presently held by scores of people, Chacha would have to buy it slowly, one at a time. Since no one person could use the land effectively, it could be bought at a very cheap price. That went on for a while. And then the broker disappeared. And Chacha was left with a jigsaw puzzle of land that wasn’t connected to anything. Not even itself.

 

After piecing this horror show together on paper, I convinced Chacha to at least visit the place. Mind you, he’d had never actually laid eyes on it. Only I had advanced his knowledge about the place with Google Maps. But not his fault. Most of the prior generations had barely laid eyes on what would screw them for the rest of their lives. Only after tying the unbreakable legal knot would they realize what they’d signed up for. Our generation had done away with those concepts.

 

The roads of rural Bengal pose their own set of challenges. It is said that if one can learn to drive in Bengal, they can drive anywhere in the world. That is why NASA is littered with Indian scientists – NASA brought in scientists from Bengal! Because if you want someone who is able to drive a rover in a completely hostile and inhospitable terrain having no idea what lies ahead and being prepared for anything, you need someone who can drive in Bengal. Which is pretty ironic, because since I have come to Bengal, this place has done everything to kill my drive.

 

The drive was mostly soundless and often roadless. Years of monsoons had withered away the roads and any kind of markings. And so, we arrived at ‘it,’ which, as it turns out, was less of a place and more of an existential dilemma. ‘It’ was in the middle of nowhere. Not the poetic middle of nowhere, where you find peace and tranquility. More like, ‘How the heck do we monitor this?’ nowhere. Evidently Chacha had bought a piece of land right in between and hence, far from, two villages so we did not even have a lock-shop close by. Not that we could have locked down the unwalled land with a lock. Other than a grazing cow, there wasn’t much to see. Sure the highway passed near, but it was a West Bengal highway. Delhi has better streets inside the chasms of Hauz Khas. And if that’s not relatable enough, think of the roads on which two cars can make slow love while passing by each other. The silver lining? You could drive fast – because no one else dared to.

But the pièce de résistance of ‘it’ was this: there was no ‘it’. The land, per say, wasn’t there. Someone had dug away the earth from the land. What was left was a lake. Or rather a collection of sizable puddles. So to recap:

 

1.     The land that wasn’t connected to the highway

2.      The land wasn’t connected to other lands

3.      The land wasn’t even land

 

I guess all wasn’t at loss. Some lesson could be derived from this dastardly tale. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Which brings us to our second story…

A Flaw in the Plan 0/8 - The Vanishing Glass

“Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person.” - Folk wisdom

We have all heard of rags to riches stories. The ones where, curiously enough, our fathers or forefathers struggled long and hard to gain fame and fortune in society. People, whose unrelenting endeavours and irreproachable work-ethic made them a living legend amongst peers and secured a legacy for generations to come. The world encourages us to appreciate and applaud such men.

 

This isn’t a story about those men.

 

We have all heard of stories from our uncles or grand-uncles (why are we still talking to them?) about the land purchased by someone who knew someone who knew them, and they became rich overnight. Or that cool teenager who bought bitcoins when they were launched and now drives a Rolls Royce off cliffs in Los Angeles. Or the bum who bought Infosys shares during the IPO and forgot about it for the next 30 years. Strokes of luck? Genius? Something to be pursued? Should I write a blog series about it? No. This isn’t one of those stories.

 

In 2015 I graduated business school to join the ranks of financial wizards who make the world go round. If you’ve ever seen a dark-suited plump bald man with a permanent expression of being late for something, you know who I’m talking about. In their youth, they had passions and hobbies but no money or time to pursue them. Then they all read Ikigai and turned all their hobbies into professional side-hustles. Who said the devil doesn’t devour souls anymore? He has simply taken the guise of capitalism. But again, this is not a story about the evils of capitalism. But we’re getting there now.

 

I chose to pursue my career in a niche branch of finance called “stressed assets management”. Interestingly, when we talk of “stressed assets”, the asset itself is not stressed – it is the investors who are stressed. But saying that out loud will deter new investors, and we investment bankers don’t want that. Stressed Assets essentially mean that if you invested in (or were duped into) “some-thing” and the “thing” part stopped working (or disappeared or was blown up in a war or the world shut down for a few months or the USA elected another stupid leader), you have yourself a stressed asset. Common examples are the abandoned half-constructed buildings typically found in every Indian neighbourhood; or the investment some fellow made in shares and lost everything; or the wedding and the inevitable divorce that bankrupted the groom. All of these were conscious decisions taken by well-meaning people, hoping to elevate their quality of life. Some money was spent. Some memories were created. And then everything came crashing down. All that remained was ruins of a beautiful dream that never saw reality, often infested with snakes – literal or figurative. Optimism? Over-optimism? Irrational Exuberance? Or just bad luck? But again, that is not what our story is about. But you can now see where we are headed.

 

Once upon a time in a village, there lived a farmer. He was poor. He had four sons. All four of them were poor. He also had a wife. She was also poor. There was even a grandmother, and you guessed it – poor. The whole family was poor. They lived off the land, which means that they grew stuff on the land, and made a living. The farmer grew old, say about 80 years, it doesn’t really matter, nobody cares. The sons were all 40-55 years old. As the farmer approached his death, he called his family close to him. For one last time he saw the people who had loved and cared for him his entire life. With his last breaths, he summoned the strength to say his final words. He told his sons that hidden within his field, there was a treasure. If the sons tilled the soil and cultivated the land, they would find the treasure chest and would never want for anything in their lives. With these words, the poor farmer drew his last breath and died.

 

The sons were confused. But with an unsaid agreement, did not speak to each other again about the treasure. These might have been the mad rumblings of a dying old man. Surely no one in their right mind would have kept their family in abject poverty while a treasure rested in the ground they had harvested their entire lives. The sons performed the last rites of their father and never spoke of the treasure again – for a week. Of course curiosity burned in them and they were having difficulties in performing regular bowel movements. The youngest (why is it always the youngest?) son could take it no more. He took a sickle and started tilling the land at the exact spot his father had mentioned. And before sunset, the sickle hit a chest buried deep in the ground. The chest was carried up. The boys (men?) couldn’t believe their eyes. The senile man had been right after all. He did bury a treasure in the ground. That old fool! But all was forgiven now. The sons could live the rest of their lives out of the poverty that had suffocated them for so long. The lock was opened and the box was opened. To find it full of Rs. 1,000 currency notes.

Our story is about such treasures. Long lost hopeless dreams that were 17% bad luck, 13% stupidity, and 71% lack of attention to detail.

 

During my career I came across many such stories. Where the most common response was, “this cannot be right. Is it though?” Actually that was the second-most common response. The most common response was depression. No matter if you had invested in it or not. Just knowing that human civilization had sunk to such levels of stupidity and greed makes you constantly wonder if we are past the great barrier of stupidity. And whether humanity had had its long run and now it was time to handover the planet to the birds and bees. I think they would do a much better job with the planet than humanity. If you agree, congratulations! You’re a communist.

 

In the coming chapters, we shall share stories of broken dreams, theft, bankruptcies, and plain old stupidity. Living these stories for years has helped me outgrow any surprise that the world might throw at me. After all, human absurdity knows no bounds. And I am living proof of that very fact. 

Father

“How are you different from your mother?”

“I hope in as few ways as possible.”

-        Martha and Harriet, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Episode 1X05

I made a friend recently. As a single man in his mid-30s, returning to his tier-2 hometown after 13 years, making friends hasn't been easy. So when the chance came upon to have dinner with a newfound friend, I pounced on the opportunity.

The conversation led to how men spend their youth trying to rebel from their fathers, only to end up like them in so many ways. I found this weirdly conflicting and relatable. For much of my adolescence, my father wasn’t really a person I could look up to. He was that presence in my life who was annoying me. In his mind, he might have been pushing me to live better. But the constant disappointment with everything that I did was overbearing. To the point that I really didn’t care what he thought of me. The brief interactions that we did have made me wanting less. Time and distance made it easy to naturally grow apart, and we didn’t even have much to talk about. Having reached the age of 30, father was a figure who existed, but we didn’t really have what we could call a real relationship.

Come to think of it, I didn’t really have any real relationships in my life. I had friends from three different colleges. I had colleagues that I would forget the moment I changed the job. I had dates, but never a stable relationship. But I didn’t really have a relationship that I could rely on. If I were to fall sick, I didn’t have a person who would wait outside the hospital doors. For much of growing up, I was on my own.

Covid changed that. Fate brought me back not only to Kolkata, but to the family business. I now lived at home and worked with Dad, being now witness in hindsight to his life journey, with all its revelries and mistakes. Over the years, I was the one who sat outside hospital gates as I became the person the family could rely upon. This was never the plan. But life has a funny way of disposing man’s plans.

The thing that brought me back to the family was actually the business. The mismanagement of it to be precise. My father comes from a generation of free-thinking risk-takers. This was the generation of the Boomers – the ones who had the world open in front of them and charged at it with full swing. The ones who had nothing to lose. Of course they hit some and missed some. All of them had investments that had gone sour and would have made a killing if only this or that had happened.

Going over the business, I realized that Dad had expanded the business beyond what he could reasonably manage. Coming from more sophisticated jobs, I had some idea of how to organize and manage bigger businesses, but I had never shouldered the responsibility of owning anything of value. There was still much to be learnt. And that is where Dad and I started becoming a good combination. We found common ground in managing the expanding business, and could talk like adults. No more did I have to face the constant disappointment. I would report to him as I would to a senior at my office. Over time, the reporting requirements reduced to him just being a mentor I could seek advice from, but was responsible for my own decisions. In time, I understood the circumstances in which faulty decisions had been made long ago. True empathy came when I made a few bad decisions of my own. It is impossible in this world to live without making mistakes. What is needed is someone who can look at you and say, “so this happened, what next?”

As we spent more time together, I started to cherish it. For once, I had this person with whom I constantly disagreed – over politics, religion, business, and lifestyle. Yet, I constantly found myself to be more similar to him than not. I could always rely that he understands my condition, both said and unsaid. He understood the enthusiasm of youth. We connected on our pursuit of spirituality and constantly quarrelled over the correct way. Coming from totally different upbringings, we were able to offer new perspectives on old problems. Even though we disagreed on practically everything, which continues to be a constant source of irritation and anguish for me, I know that we work on the same value systems. We have common ground. And we can talk to each other like men.

Over the years I have come to consider myself luckier than most of my friends. Many of us escaped our tier-II upbringing settling in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, or Bangalore when home became the new family that we initiate. I miss that freedom and self-reliance. I have given away a part of my life to exist for the family. In that, my world has grown. I am able to spend time with my parents which could not be possible for most of my friends. I was able to spend time with my father while he could still teach me something; and I could add some value to his life. Most importantly, I had one person in my life that I could rely upon and know that his mere existence acts as a calm over the chaos that I live through.

Over the years we have planned trips together, collaborated in legal battles, took decisions for the business and the family, and just sat across the table and shared thoughts about what we are going through. Often, I would caution him against over-extending himself, either physically or financially. But I understand that he needs to feel like the risk-taking entrepreneur that made a life for himself. I cannot pull him too far back. He is old, but he is still a man. When he says that we will climb a snow-peaked hill, I cannot refuse him simply because I see the risks more clearly. Instead, I stay right behind him. And when I stay out late at night, he doesn’t question where I was. Once Mother did try to instigate him into questioning my whereabouts. He simply said that I am a grown-up and will go where I please. He respects my boundaries. It was me who had difficulty accepting his.

And so it continues. I don’t know how much time destiny shall grant me with him. There will come the inevitable time when we will have to part. I intend to cherish every bit of it. I couldn’t discover a relationship with my father while I was growing up. But it was wonderful to meet him as a grown-up. He had to make the wait while I made the climb.

It is difficult for a single man in his mid-30s, returning to his tier-2 hometown after 13 years to make friends. But you don’t really have to look very far from home to find one.

Kashi 3/3 - Dalmandi Road

I had taken an early morning walk southwards from the hostel towards Assi Ghat. I walked till the end of the road where the Ghats ended. To venture further south I would need to walk through the town, which I didn’t want to do. So I returned north to the other end of the city. I reached Manikarnika Ghat beyond the Kashi Vishwanath temple. However, I did not happen to cross the Namo Ghat that I had heard a lot about. Someone said that it was further up north beyond Manikarnika, but boats refused to go there and there was no more road beyond Manikarnika. So I decided to walk through the city.

I followed Google Maps which didn’t show a direct path to Namo Ghat. I would need to detour from deep into the town and come back towards the ghats. It was early and I was fresh. I decided to take the journey. The path would take me through a narrow alley named Dalmandi Road. Varanasi had a lot of alleys, so that wasn’t surprising. The surprises started once I entered the alley.

I walked into Dalmandi Road through the western side and the shift was immediate. The entrance was a bustling market even in the morning close to the entrance of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. There were queues of people waiting in line for the temple, early morning shoppers, breakfast places Varanasi is famous for, or people just loitering about on a vacation. But just around the corner inside Dalmandi Road was a completely different vibe.

The place was almost deserted. I saw perhaps 10 people during the kilometre-long walk. The buildings on each side of the road were ripped away from the ground. It didn’t feel like a city anymore. I imagined this would be what war-torn Palestine or Ukraine might look like. It was also very noticeable that this was predominantly a Muslim locality. The people I saw on the road had traditional Muslim attire and beards. There were broken water pipes which still had streams of water, making parts of the road muddy. It was disturbing that there could be such a view just next to that bustling market outside. It felt as if I had been transported to another planet through a portal, and I wasn’t sure if I could go back. If an accident were to fall upon me in this alley, there was no way anyone could know or I could be found. I felt away from my home planet. These buildings didn’t seem to be demolished in an organized manner. The trail of destruction were left behind. At one point I could see what must have been a dining room at some point, still intact but the exterior wall was missing. A lot of buildings seemed to just have been dropped, without any post-cleaning. As if some bombing had occurred in the street. But why would the bombing happen only on this street, and no other streets adjoining. I wanted to Google where I was and the history of this street. But faster than that I wanted to be out of the other end. This was obviously not safe. I didn’t want to run, lest any stray dogs come after me. I knew that it was important to appear tough when you’re shit scared.

On returning to the hostel I Googled and found that there was an active demolition drive at Dalmandi road. Some articles said that it was because the construction in that lane was unauthorized – an argument which lent little merit. Varanasi is an ancient city. Most of the construction in the city is unauthorized. The residences in narrow lanes predate any civic authority. Even the lanes do not always have names. The other argument was that it would enable a wide and fast corridor from the ghats to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. This was an infrastructure improvement initiative. There is a fierce debate of development vs. preservation that is intense enough at Varanasi, and we will not get into that in this article. I am sure the free and fair elections at Varanasi will give verdict to this debate. But it was interesting to note that only the Muslim locality was targeted for such infrastructure improvement, in a somewhat traumatic way.

Dalmani Road finds its mention in the throes of history. It is populated by silk-shops, brothels, and residences of Muslim shopowners whose shops were on the ground levels of such structures. It is said to be the place where the revolt of 1857 was planned. I would believe that, as the best place to plan a revolt would be a narrow Muslim Lane in a vastly Hindu religious city inside a brothel. There can be no better cover. That history is now rubble. I am sure there will be vast improvements to the Shiv temple in lieu of the destruction. I doubted if the God of destruction appreciated this violence in his name.

Kashi 2/3 - Ghat Walk

I stepped into Varanasi with songs in my heart – specifically “Tu Ban Ja Gali Banaras Ki” and “Tu Kisi Rail Si Guzarti Hai”. I had no agenda or plan on what to do on reaching. My best option was to wander around the Ghats and the lanes. Food was always available everywhere and if I couldn’t find a shop, there was always Swiggy. I walked along the Ghats to my heart’s content. I walked on every step I could find, and I walked every morning and every night.

I found a band who was performing at the Ghats and without a second thought I rushed up and joined them, singing old and new songs, discovering that there wasn’t really much difference among them. I found street food vendors whom I started to recognize and the distinct flavors they specialized in. I found a sketch-artist who made a portrait for me for Rs. 350 in 30 minutes, all while sitting at the Ghat. I walked into a garden from where I was driven away because it wasn’t “for tourists”. I later joked with a Swede couple that how even Banarasi loacs recognized me as a tourist, with no trace of white skin on me. I found a sage basking in the early morning sun surrounded by pigeons. I kept walking till the Ghats ended. Then I turned back and walked more.

There was this one instance with a guy. There’s a large painting of Shiv on one of the walls where Shiv extends his hand outwards. A guy was trying to take a picture with his own hand extended towards Shiv, as if holding his hand. He was trying to work the camera angle. It was one of those things that you pass by without paying much attention, as I would have to. I was walking thinking if Shiv is so different from Varanasi. I have often believed that a man’s home is an extension and expression of his self. If that were so, then Varanasi with all its chaos was undoubtedly the expression of Shiv. As I was passing by that man, I don’t know what came over me – magic or mischief – but I shook his hand and went along my way. I didn’t even break my step. But I will remember the look on that man’s face for the rest of my life, as I know he will remember me. He was trying to reach out to Shiv, and in the process, Varanasi reached out to him. I wondered of all the ways in which Varanasi was reaching out to me as well. Every great or small interaction I was having with the people, dogs, land, and sky of Varanasi was Shiv. Not only was this His home, this was Him.

In another incident there was a protected VIP Ghat. I crossed by it several times, nothing seemed to be happening there. Just 2 police officers sending people away who ventured too far into the Ghat. There was a small Vishnu temple there that I noticed and wanted to visit. I had never seen a Vishnu temple. It was on the edge of the river. As I proceeded towards it the guards signalled me away. I tried to negotiate that I just wanted to visit the temple without venturing into the protected place, but the guards wouldn’t budge. Ultimately I had to go climb back up the stairs. Interestingly, the stairway went right above the temple. I was walking over where the shrine must have been inside the temple. As someone who is brought up in Hindu traditions, it is unthinkable to step over a shrine with shoes intact. But I thought that’s what being in Shiv’s home is like. There is no superior or inferior, not even Gods. There’s chaos. And there’s Shiv. And that’s all that matters.

Kashi 1/3 - Arrival

I landed at Lal Bahadir Shastri International Airport, Varanasi, on a Thursday morning with a suitcase and backpack in a sleep deprived manner. I was not sure why I was there. It was mostly to get out of Calcutta for a while. I have nothing against Kolkata. I mean I do, but that’s not the point of this story. I was basically in need of a vacation. A change of scenery if you please.

Once the thought had hit my mind, it automatically transferred from brain to Instagram without waiting for my consent. For the next two weeks, I browsed through all kinds of trips from solo-group travels (a true gen-Z invention), IRCTC Bharat Gaurav tours (they aren’t that bad), Spiti Valley-like places (the usual), African Safaris (sure to get popular in the coming years), and even an Antarctic expedition! I didn’t like any of them. Each of them seemed to have a different constraint. Till I realized that the real constraint must lie with me. True, I was in a terrible mood. Terrible enough for me not to take any action to come out of it. This was all the more reason to go for a vacation. I decided that if I didn’t like anything in the next two days, I will travel to Varanasi.

Why Varanasi? Because it was logistically feasible, the bookings were convenient, and being a single Hindi-speaking man, I couldn’t go wrong in a touristy place in north-India. Besides, Shiv has a certain allure. Two days passed. I didn’t like anything else. I booked flights and a hostel in Varanasi for the weekend.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Part of me wanted peace. Part of me wanted to talk to someone or many people. Part of me wanted to go somewhere new. Part of me wanted to go somewhere familiar. Varanasi somehow satisfied all those requirements.

As soon as I exited the airport I was huddled by cab-drivers whom I ignored on instinct. I was no stranger to north-Indian touristy places. And I’d done my research. There was supposed to be a bus stand close to the airport that where I could take a bus that would drop me right in the centre of the city. But I saw no buses or bus stands outside the small airport. On some searching I realized that the bus stand was a 1 km walk from the airport. Sleepy me wasn’t going to start my trip with a 1 km walk in the hot Sun. Later during the trip, Varanasi would make me walk a lot. But thankfully she didn’t make me start the trip with that. I ran into a cab-driver who was going on my way for his own work, and would drop me on the way. The fare was considerably less than the other drivers in the vicinity. So I went with him.

You cannot have a conversation with a Banarasi local and not touch upon local politics. I don’t know which of us started, but he gave me his perspective on the local political climate. Banarasi people love to talk. I didn’t have to prod him much for him to go on a full-scale monologue on why his party was good and the other one was not. I tried to play the devil’s advocate which in most cases, only leads people to argue their point more vehemently. But I was beginning to get a sense of the city. I also wondered that if this truly is Shiv’s city, then I should accept whatever I stumble across as Shiv’s blessing, even if it be a blabbering cab-driver.

I had booked a hostel in the deep alleys of Varanasi close to the ghats. It seemed like a vibrant place with a lot of community space. I quickly realized that they had somewhat oversold their community places by brushing them up for Instagram. I also realized that Varanasi was not going to socialize during hot summer days. I was going to spend a lot of time indoors during the days. I planned on sleeping a lot, and roam around in the nights.

As I was checking into my room, I came across Manoj Kumar P’s The Silence Beneath Kashi at the hostel’s bookshelf (singular). The cover seemed to have that familiar allure that had attracted me to Kashi. The book promised great revelations, and I approached it with great expectations. I was quickly disappointed. The author had written the entire book using ChatGPT – very engaging, no real content. The style and shifts were repetitive. The book didn’t make any particular point or led anywhere. I wondered if this was also a blessing from Shiv or whether it was a sign of Kalyug where it had been predicted that even Kashi would run dry. Between musings like these, I fell asleep.

Varanasi had that vibe. There is a lot of lull and a lot of chaos. It didn’t quite get anywhere. But it moves and shifts, often outside and often within you. You can’t really place it in any category. It is not a strictly religious destination. There’s spirituality but there’s also any kind of deviance that you might want to explore. There’s freedom to do anything you want. No one judges. Everyone and everything is Shiv, including the dogs that might block your path. Anger and love aren’t expressed differently. Civility lacks civility, and there’s a lot of it. It is a weird city. I was going to be here for the next few days. I was sure to run into some interesting incidents.

Hanuman Ansh – Review

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” – Albus Dumbledore

My sister and I generally do not agree on movies. She is more of a Dabangg-girl; I am more of an Interstellar-guy. I’ve long learnt not to entertain her recommendations, and she knows this better than anyone else. So naturally I was surprised when she came and told me that not only would I enjoy Hanuman Ansh, but she would watch it again as well.

I checked out the movie. The cast and crew were unknown. Not just unknown, but the director, lead actor, singers… nobody even had a Wikipedia page. The movie barely had one. The songs seemed to be all traditional folk songs with no particular lyricist. Normally, I would ignore such movies as the futile attempt of some overzealous assistant director from Oshiwada who was doomed to fail. But my sister’s excitement got to me. I agreed and we booked a Sunday matinee show.

The theatre was full, contrary to my expectations. Even before the movie began, there were subtle hints of what was to come. There were absolutely no posters of the movie throughout the cinema hall, which was unusual. There weren’t many ads at the beginning of the movie. With a budget of only Rs. 2 Cr, I guess they didn’t spend on marketing at all. Come to think of it, how do you make a movie for Rs. 2 Cr in modern India anyway? Even Masaan was made on a budget of Rs. 7 Cr; but it did enjoy relatively known faces like Richa Chadha and Vicky Kaushal from recent Gangs of Wasseypur fame. Hanuman Ansh seemed to be made by a rag-tag group of theatre actors who wanted to get into filmmaking. But more on that later.

The movie begins with a disclaimer, which was a herald of things to come. Hanuman Ansh is the story of Neem Karoli Baba. It should classify as a devotional movie or a biopic – a controversial genre in contemporary India. Normally such movies follow a long disclaimer. The disclaimer of Dhurandhar: The Revenge runs into 15 lines putting all kinds of legal liabilities behind the movie. The disclaimer of Mahavatar Narsimha runs 7 lines emphasizing the religious nature of the movie and dramatization of some events. The disclaimer of Hanuman Ansh is just 3 lines – more like bullet points than sentences

• This is a devotional movie
• Some events are dramatized for the purposes of cinematic representation
• The ultimate interpretation to the wisdom of the audience

The usual long disclaimers about not hurting the sentiments of any community or any resemblance to any person being coincidental are absent. Rather, the wisdom of the audience is trusted. It has been a long time since a movie has trusted the wisdom of the audience. As a writer myself, I have difficulty trusting my audience anymore. This movie operates on conviction. And thankfully, finds its audience.

There are 2 scenes where this conviction is tested. One is when Baba leaves the town of Neem Karori. The entire town tries to stop him. When Baba does not relent, the town cries for a long time. Another is a scene where a person chants the Hanuman Chalisa in a night-scene in a forest. It is not a musical recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa. It’s just a man reciting it. With abrupt pauses, no rhythm, and no sense of melody. It’s like any average person would recite the Hanuman Chalisa when they find themselves in a spooky forest in the middle of the night. Both scenes run for over a minute on screen. Moviemakers don’t make such scenes anymore. There is always the risk of losing the short-attention span of the audience. People might forward the scene or check WhatsApp messages watching the movie screen-in-screen on their phones. This has been a point of debate among cinematic circles in recent times. Hanuman Ansh moves forward putting two scenes where they risk alienating the audience. The audience doesn’t budge. After a long time, we see a movie made with honesty and sincerity which feels refreshing. This movie does not chase TRPs; and that works with an audience starved for honesty.

Another point to note is given the right-winged times of the world propounded by movies like Dhurandhar and Kashmir Files. This movie does not delve into any politics or propaganda of any kind. It remains true to its devotion to Neem Karoli Baba and does not sway from it.

Coming to the cast and crew, long-time moviegoers will immediately recognize the crew as theatre trained. There is a fair bit of neck-acting, formally known through the Natya Shastra in Indian traditions. The most famous master of the art in recent times being Pankaj Tripathi. The camerawork is on spot, which syncs perfectly with the music, telling you that this is not an amateur crew, but a very experienced one who just haven’t worked on a big budget before. Thankfully, they will be able to now.

The background setting, minimal VFX, and costumes, dissolve seamlessly into the movie with nothing bothering the eye – just as good infrastructure should be. The Director comes with some experience over a few other projects, which I am now excited to watch. The lead actor is experiences as an assistant director with this being his first acting assignment. Like all good assistant directors, he delivers. It would be a miracle if this movie ends up grossing higher than Namit Malhotra’s Ramayan, but that may be a possibility. At least in terms of remaining true to the core message, Hanuman Ansh does a phenomenal job that any high-budget movie will not be able to do due to production constraints.

I walked out of the theatre with an unusual problem. At no point does the movie claim that the story is true. In fact, it takes efforts to disclaim the supernatural claims as fantasy and tricks on the eye. But I came out wanting the fantasy to be true. The engineer in me wasn't convinced. But perhaps that is exactly what the movie intended when it left the ultimate interpretation to the wisdom of the audience. Now that Hanuman Ansh has seen success, I hope it encourages filmmakers to look beyond the familiar mythology and tell more of these strange, forgotten stories of mystical India. We may not believe all of them. Perhaps we don't always need to.

Sitaram!

Independence vs. Swatantrata

Dedicated to Hazari Prasad Dwivedi and his essay – नाखून क्यों बढ़ते हैं?

Some nations translate political words – not India. Our constitutional vocabulary does not import, it adapts. The Indian lexicon is derived from older linguistic and philosophical traditions. Words like “Republic”, “Democracy”, and “Independence” did not just receive Hindi equivalents – they were reimagined through Sanskrit roots.

Consider the phrase “Republic Day.” In English, the word means a political system where power resides with the people, rather, a collection of people. In Hindi, the term is “Gantantra Diwas” (गणतंत्र दिवस). This is not merely a phonetic transliteration, but a conceptual translation. When we unpack the word, layer by layer, it reveals how language encodes a worldview.

Let us begin with the word “Gan” (गण). Gan broadly refers to a group, an assembly, or a collective. It is one of those roots that appears repeatedly across mythology. The attendants of Shiv are called Shivgan (शिवगण) – the people of Shiv. His son is called Ganapati (गणपति), the leader of the gans. There is also a pleasant phonetic echo with Gajapati (गजपति), lord of elephants, which aligns with Ganesh’s iconography. The name Ganesh (गणेश) also comes from the same root, meaning the one who is supreme among the Gans. The root meaning remains tied to the collective.

The same root appears in ganit (गणित), meaning mathematics. The original sense of ganit is counting. Whether we are speaking of divine attendants, social bodies, or numbers, the root idea is consistent. “Gan” is about organized plurality. It is people as a counted, acknowledged collective.

Now consider the more fun half of the word – tantra (तंत्र). Tantra originally points to a device or framework for weaving or structuring. A loom is one of the classical metaphors. Threads by themselves are loose and chaotic. A loom holds them in tension and pattern so that fabric can emerge.

Across Sanskrit literature, tantra evolved to mean a system or structured body of knowledge. Many tantric (तांत्रिक) texts are presented as dialogues, often between Shiv and Parvati. In that sense, tantra is not merely a doctrine but a structured transmission of knowledge through conversation. It is not random speech. It is disciplined dialogue.

In later traditions, one often encounters the triad of mantra (मंत्र), yantra (यंत्र), and tantra. Mantra is the thought and sound. Yantra is the device – mechanical or symbolic. Tantra is the system – the procedural framework within which things operate. Seen this way, tantra is architecture.

Tantra as a system is both an enabler and a restriction. It allows energy to flow, but through channels. Without boundaries, there is instability. With structure, there is direction and continuity. In that sense, tantra also implies disciplined containment. It is ordered expansion.

Gan combines with tantra to become Gantantra. Literally, the framework or system of the collective. The structured order of the people. A people organized through a governing framework.

This is an unusually elegant rendering of “Republic.” It captures not only that people are the source of authority, but that authority must operate through a system, a woven structure of rules, offices, and procedures. It implies deliberation, method, and boundaries. It suggests that dissent is not a failure of the system but part of its operating fabric.

This also connects with how knowledge itself is often framed in Indian traditions. Dialogue is central. It is the style of the Upanishads. Many philosophical texts are structured as questions and answers. The Shiv-Parvati dialogues in tantric literature symbolically encode a relational model of knowledge transmission. The presence of the curious feminine voice is not accidental in these archetypes – it is highly intentional. It shows how dissent and feminine energy was not only tolerated but encouraged. Tantra signals that truth emerges in exchange. It is fair to say that the argumentative style is deeply embedded in classical Indian knowledge forms.

Now move to another key political word: Independence. In English, independence is the absence of dependence. The frame centres the prior constraint, and then declares separation from it.

India’s chosen word is Swatantrata (स्वतंत्रता). This is formed from sva (स्व), meaning self, and tantra, meaning system or framework. Swatantra therefore means governed by one’s own system. Not merely free from another, but operating through one’s own framework. Swatantra did not just mean self-governance in the political sense, it meant individual self-governance as well – an idea as old as this civilization.

There were other available linguistic pathways. Dependence in Sanskrit languages is often expressed through the word “aadhin” (आधीन), meaning under the authority of another. Swaadhin (स्वाधीन) means under one’s own authority. In fact, the freedom struggle was frequently called the swaadheenta sangram (स्वाधीनता संग्राम), i.e. the struggle for self-rule. But the dominant public term became swatantrata – self-governance.

This is a semantic choice. Rather than using the term for removal of foreign power, Sanskrit phrasing frames freedom as the presence of internal order. One says no master, the other says self-framework.

That difference is subtle but philosophically meaningful. It shifts attention away from the oppressor and toward the structure. It is a forward-looking definition of freedom.

The same pattern appears in the pairing of democracy and republic in Indian usage. Democracy (demos = people, -cracy = rule) is translated as Loktantra (लोकतंत्र). Lok (लोक) refers to public or world. Loktantra is the system of the people. Republic or Gantantra is the framework of the collective. In everyday language, the two are often used interchangeably. While the world uses the word "-cracy" meaning rule, India uses the word "tantra" meaning system.

There is a slight nuance between lok and gan. While lok suggests the broad public, gan suggests an organized collective or assembly. This is key as at the time of independence, the assembly mechanism was yet to be established. So it was simply a self-rule of the people. After the constitution was put in effect, the people became a structured collective. Both translations converge on the same civilizational idea that governance arises from the people through systems.

Languages are not neutral containers. They carry habits of thought. Translations are not innocent. They reveal what a civilization thinks politics is for. India’s linguistic convergence suggests something important – and that is my real reason for writing this article. Democracy in India was not an imported political scheme. It was the inherent nature of this civilization. Words for people, assembly, system, dialogue, and self-rule were already deeply embedded before the first word of the constitution was ever inked. That is why the first words of the Indian constitution are "We, the people".

When India says Gantantra, it is not just naming a republic. It is describing an aspiration: a collective held together by a framework. When it says Swatantrata, it is not just marking the end of colonial rule. It is asserting the beginning of self-structured governance, and the governance of the self. When it says Loktantra, it is not merely echoing democracy. It is affirming that the public is meant to sit inside the system, not outside it.

This also sheds light on a familiar Indian paradox. Public discourse in India is noisy, argumentative, often exasperating. Debate spills into streets, courts, and tea stalls. Dissent is rarely silent. From one angle, this looks like disorder. From another, it looks like a civilization unusually comfortable with contention. A Gantantra is not designed for quiet obedience. It is designed for managed dissent.

Of course, reality falls short. Systems calcify. Dialogue becomes slogan. No linguistic heritage guarantees political virtue. But vocabulary remembers. It shapes instinct and expectation. It tells citizens what kind of political life feels natural for the civilization.

Independence Day is not only a historical commemoration of a constitution coming into force. It is also a reminder hidden in plain sight inside the word Swatantra. That the ethos of this civilization go beyond the republic and the constitution. Self-governance is the inherent nature of this civilization. The people are not mere spectators, they are threads in the weave. And system is meant to be a loom, constantly weaving bright new patterns and finding new threads to imbibe.

Activate Your Mid-Brain This Weekend — Seats Filling Fast

[A bright Saturday morning in the living room of a middle-class apartment in a Tier-2 Indian city. Sunlight streams through the balcony. A 13-year-old boy, AAYANSH, is sprawled on the sofa scrolling through his phone. His father, MR. GULLIBLE (38, mid-level corporate employee in a new-age fintech start-up), enters carrying two glossy pamphlets and his laptop. He has the slightly manic smile of someone who has just discovered the Secret to Everything.]

MR. GULLIBLE (excited, almost breathless): Aayansh beta! Put the phone down. This is important. Life-changing, actually.

AAYANSH (without looking up): Is it about my marks again?

MR. GULLIBLE: Don’t be silly, we don’t talk about things that are non-existent. This is about unlocking your potential. Look at this! (waves pamphlet) “Mid-Brain Activation & Third Eye Awakening Workshop – Only Rs. 11,999 for children 10-16. Special early-bird discount if we register today!”

AAYANSH: Isn’t the cost a bit too high?

MR. GULLIBLE: Don’t think of the cost beta! Think of the future. They say after the training you can read with your eyes closed. Smell currency notes and know its number. Sleep with a book and wake up with the contents transferred directly in your head. Imagine! You could finish your entire syllabus during lunch break without even opening your eyes.

AAYANSH (finally looks up, one eyebrow raised): Smell currency notes?

MR. GULLIBLE: Yes! Olfactory intuition. The trainer explained it in the free webinar last night. Our brain has this dormant mid-brain that ancient rishis used, but modern education killed it. They just reactivate it with simple exercises. Thirty hours over one weekend. Done. They even offer a certificate!

AAYANSH: And then I can smell my science textbook and know osmosis?

MR. GULLIBLE: Precisely! And not just that. They also teach speed reading, photographic memory, and aura cleansing as a bonus module. Aura cleansing is very useful for concentration. You know how sometimes you feel “blocked” before exams?

AAYANSH: I felt blocked when I messaged Kiara.

MR. GULLIBLE: That’s different. That’s external blockage. This is internal blockage. Energy blockage. They showed a video – children blindfolded, reading newspapers, solving math problems, even identifying colours just by touching the paper. One boy smelled a sealed envelope and said, “it’s a birthday card from Australia.” Everyone clapped.

AAYANSH: Did they check if the envelope actually came from Australia?

MR. GULLIBLE: Aayansh, beta, you always ask these negative questions. This workshop will teach you how to be more positive. You’ll thank me.

AAYANSH: Okay, but why do you look so excited? You’re not 13.

MR. GULLIBLE: Because I already signed up for the adult version! “Quantum Mind Productivity Mastery - Level 1”. Only Rs. 18,999. Three weekends. They say after Level 1 you can finish slide decks in alpha state, manifest clients in theta state, and close deals in delta state. I attended the free introductory session yesterday. He demonstrated. He blindfolded himself, smelled a participant’s phone, and told her, “You have 47 unread WhatsApp messages from your mother-in-law and three from Zomato about delayed delivery.” The woman started crying. Emotional breakthrough.

AAYANSH: Maybe he just heard the notification sounds.

MR. GULLIBLE: No, beta, he was blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones. It’s next level.

AAYANSH: Okay. Suppose I do this workshop. What happens if I still can’t smell my history chapter?

MR. GULLIBLE: That’s the beauty of the system. They have Level 2 and Level 3. Level 2 is “Deep Pineal Activation & Astral Projection for Academic Excellence” – for only Rs. 13,999. If after Level 2 you still have issues, it means your aura needs more cleansing, so you go for the Aura Detox Retreat in Lonavala. Only Rs. 31,999, but they give a 10% discount if both parent and child register together.

AAYANSH: So basically, if it doesn’t work, it’s my fault for not doing enough levels?

MR. GULLIBLE: No, no. It’s not “fault”. It’s readiness. Some souls take longer to awaken. Acharya ji says doubt is the biggest block. Doubt creates energetic static. You must trust the process.

AAYANSH: So, if I don’t trust it, it won’t work, and if it doesn’t work, it’s because I didn’t trust it?

MR. GULLIBLE: Exactly! See how logical it is?

AAYANSH: Dad, can I ask something?

MR. GULLIBLE: Anything, beta.

AAYANSH: You’ve done three productivity workshops in the last two years. First was “7 AM Club – Wake Up Legendary”, then “Neuro-Linguistic Reprogramming for High Performers”, then “ChatGPT + Law of Attraction for Million-Dollar Mindset”. Did any of them make you finish your quarterly targets faster?

MR. GULLIBLE (slight pause): Well, the targets are getting higher every quarter. That’s not the program’s fault. That’s market dynamics. But I feel more productive. I wake up at 5:30 now. I do gratitude journaling, breath of fire, and visualize my promotion for fifteen minutes before checking mails. That’s growth.

AAYANSH: But you still work till 10 p.m. and complain about your manager every night.

MR. GULLIBLE: That’s because my team members are not aligned with my vibration yet. Once they do Level 1, everything will flow.

AAYANSH: So you want me to do blindfold reading so that… what? I get into IIT? Or so you can post on the family WhatsApp group that your son is “gifted”?

MR. GULLIBLE: Both! Imagine the caption: When your child reads Harry Potter with his third eye open #ProudDad #MidBrainMagic #FutureLeader

AAYANSH: Dad, I can already read Harry Potter. With my normal eyes. It’s quite fast actually.

MR. GULLIBLE: But this is different. This is superhuman. This is what the next generation needs. AI is coming. Jobs are disappearing. Only those with activated mid-brains will survive.

AAYANSH: So, AI will take normal jobs, but not jobs that require smelling textbooks?

MR. GULLIBLE: Exactly!

AAYANSH: Dad… can I say something honest?

MR. GULLIBLE: Of course.

AAYANSH: I think you’re scared. Not about my future. About yours. Every time there’s a new workshop, you light up like it’s the answer. And then three months later you’re quiet again. And then another advertisement comes. They sell it like “investment” while all they really offer is the latest fad. It’s like… you’re chasing something that keeps moving away.

MR. GULLIBLE (voice softening): Maybe. Maybe I am tired. The appraisals, the bell curve, the 9-box grid… I just want to feel I’m moving forward. That there’s a hack. Something faster than just hard work.

AAYANSH: Hard work is boring. I get it. But maybe there’s no hack. Maybe the people selling the hacks know that, and that’s why they keep making new levels.

MR. GULLIBLE (quiet for a long moment): When did you become so wise?

AAYANSH: I read a lot. With my eyes open.

MR. GULLIBLE: Touché.

AAYANSH: How about this? Instead of Rs. 11,999, you give me half that money. I’ll use it to buy books I actually want to read. And I promise I’ll finish them. No blindfold required.

MR. GULLIBLE: And the other half?

AAYANSH: You can use it to buy yourself one weekend with no webinars, no gurus, no productivity journals. Just… sleep. Or watch a movie. Or talk to me without trying to fix anything.

MR. GULLIBLE: Maybe you’re right… maybe limited belief systems are okay sometimes.

AAYANSH: Maybe…

Before the War

The sky was unusually clear that night. No clouds. No dust. No omen that could be blamed later. The stars stood exposed, like witnesses who had agreed in advance not to intervene.

Across the plain of Kurukshetra, two great camps breathed in uneven sleep. Fires burned low. Armor rested beside men, who pretended to rest beside apocalypse. Horses shifted, chains clinked, conches lay silent waiting to be blown.

The same sky stretched over all of them. It did not choose sides, it waited.

Ashwathama

In the Kaurav camp, Ashwathama was awake. War is the only honest judge left among men, he thought, and he trusted its verdict more than councils and elders and trembling kings.

Ashwathama sat near a dying fire, sharpening a blade that did not need further sharpening. The rhythm soothed him. Stone against steel, like intention against action.

His fingers rose often, almost unconsciously, to his forehead, to the mani. The jewel sat embedded in flesh like destiny – cool and certain. A promise that was carved into bone.

They say I cannot be defeated, he thought. Not by Gods, not by men, not by beasts. I was born with powers, a gift for the good deeds earned over many past lives.

He looked up at the stars and smiled. The constellations were scattered formations. To his eyes they arranged themselves into army formations – celestial battle arrays. That cluster there, a spearhead. That arc, a flanking move. Even the sky, it seemed, respected strategy.

Tomorrow would not be chaos, it would be design. He imagined the songs that would follow. Not the soft songs of lovers, but the fierce songs of warriors. His body was already unconquerable, now his story would be immortal as well. He was the son of Dronacharya – unfallen, unbreakable, everlasting. He would still be alive when others would just be bodies on the ground.

Immortality thrilled him – to remain when others faded, that was victory’s purest form. Let heaven keep its gardens and hell its fires. The true reward was to still be alive when the last piece of embers had turned to ash!

A moth drifted too close to the ember and vanished in a blink. Ashwathama did not notice. He pressed the mani again and whispered, almost playfully, ‘let the others fear death. I have already defeated it.’

The sky did not answer. It had heard this before.

Sahadev

On the other end of the great battlefield lay the Pandav camp, where Sahadev had drawn a small chart in the dust and erased it three times. The calculations did not change. They never did. Planets did not bend for his discomfort. Fate did not soften for grief. The grammar of the sky was exact and humourless.

He had known this war was coming for a long time – before the first insult was thrown, before the palace burned with lacquer and deceit, before the dice was rolled… The patterns had always been there, like a creeper slowly making its climb.

Knowledge, people believed, was power. Surely such people had never been cursed by it. Sahadev looked up at the stars and saw destiny. The bright one near the horizon marked a fall on the tenth day. The red glint above it marked a vow fulfilled with terrible efficiency. A dim cluster to the north, almost invisible, marked a survival worse than death…

He closed his eyes. He knew who would win. That was the smallest part of it. He knew how they would win, and what it would cost them. Victory was not a clean number in his calculations. It was a fraction, with blood in the denominator.

He also knew something else. A quieter thread in the weave. He knew he would not speak. That was the knot. Could he speak and change it? The question returned to him every hour like a hungry wolf. If the future is seen, is it fixed? If it is fixed, why blame man? If choice exists, why does knowledge not alter it?

He tested the thought carefully, like a tongue on a broken tooth. If I tell them everything, will they act differently? He followed the branches forward in his mind. He had done this exercise many times. Each variation bent, twisted, resisted, and returned to the same trunk. Different paths, same forest, same fire.

He laughed softly, without joy. ‘So this is freedom,’ he murmured. ‘To walk willingly into what you cannot avoid,’ freedom to him was indistinguishable from bondage.

A guard passed and saluted. Sahadev nodded back, composed. The guard saw a calm prince. Not a man watching experiencing reality in advance.

There was also the vow. The strange binding condition laid upon his knowledge. That truth, fully spoken, would demand the ultimate price. Some truths are not forbidden by Gods. They are forbidden by structure.

Was his silence selfish? The accusation sometimes rose within him. Or was it obedience to a design larger than impulse? If he shouted the ending into the night, would dharma strengthen?

He looked again at the sky. It was not cruel. It was precise.

‘I know,’ he said to it quietly. ‘And still I will stand in line with the others, surprised on schedule.’

A breeze passed, erasing the last of his dust chart. He did not redraw it.

‘The sky has already decreed,’ he thought.

Krishn

Between the two camps, where the ground gently sloped and the grass had been flattened by chariot wheels, Krishn walked alone.

No guard. No banner. In the half-light he could have been mistaken for a common soldier who had lost his way. Or perhaps a musician searching for a quiet place to play his instrument…

He paused, looked around, and sat on a low rock.

Tomorrow, he thought, this stretch would be thunder. Wheels screaming, bows singing, men shouting the names of Gods they remembered only in danger. Tonight, it was only earth and air.

He picked up a blade of grass and turned it between his fingers, studying it with attention. The place did not need choosing. It had already been chosen when the world was first created. Some locations are less geography and more inevitability. A question waits there until an answer sits down.

He looked up at the stars. He did not calculate them. He did not map them to outcomes. His work was not prediction. His work was alignment. Men often confused the two.

He knew what would unfold. It was a necessity of balance. When weight shifts too far, correction must appear. Not always gently. He felt no excitement for victory, no dread of loss. Emotion, for him, was not absent. It was transparent. It did not block vision.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said softly, as if speaking to the field itself, ‘many will think they are fighting a battle. Few will realize that death was inevitable anyway.’

A night bird called and fell silent. Choice did not mean control over result. It meant clarity of intent at the moment of action. That was enough. More than enough.

He smiled slightly, imagining the hesitation that would seize the great archer at the edge of duty. Compassion would collide with duty. Love would argue with responsibility. A necessary fracture before understanding can appear. Words would be needed then, to reveal what action looks like when it is free from desire.

He lay back on the grass, hands behind his head, as if idling. As if nothing in particular was about to occur. The posture of a man with no appointment and no purpose. Very similar to a man with an appointment with time and infinite purpose.

To one camp, the sky was a promise of survival. To another, it was a ledger of loss. To him, it was a ceiling under which the world would hear Dharm speak.

 

The same sky covered them all.

By morning, men would swear the war began with a conch. They would be wrong. It began with how each of them read the night.