It is one of history’s great ironies that nuclear energy—arguably among humanity’s most profound technological achievements—remains burdened with the shadow of destruction. The association is not without reason; it was forged in the searing memory of the Hiroshima bombing on 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, when the atom first revealed its terrifying power. And yet, in the decades since, that same force has quietly transformed into one of the cleanest and most sustainable sources of electricity we know. When India’s Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam recently went critical, it stirred in me a cascade of memories—most vividly, my visit in 2007 to the reactor ‘Bhavani’ as part of President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s entourage.

I remember standing before a structure of such immense scale and complexity—its vast volumes of reinforced concrete and steel descending deep underground, layers engineered, cooled and shielded to contain a force that, once critical, cannot simply be switched off—that it redefined my sense of what human endeavour can achieve. Today, when public celebrations often gather around bridges and skyscrapers, I am struck by how little we recognise these deeper infrastructures that sustain civilisation. We have grown accustomed to admiring the visible and the ornate, while remaining largely unaware of the invisible forces—and the monumental systems, buried beneath our feet—that quietly hold our world together.

At the foundation of this journey stands Homi J. Bhabha—a visionary who not only imagined India’s atomic future but also built the institutions to realise it. With the support of the Tata Trusts and the visionary backing of J. R. D. Tata, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945, laying the foundation for India’s advanced scientific research ecosystem. In 1954, he articulated the three-stage nuclear programme, a uniquely Indian strategy designed to convert limited uranium and abundant thorium into long-term energy security. His untimely death on 24 January 1966, in the crash of Air India Flight 101, bound for London and lost over Mont Blanc in the Alps, did not extinguish this vision. It endured—quietly, persistently—through generations of scientists, and through a political leadership that grasped the long arc of national interest. That the first stage now stands effectively realised in April 2026 is not merely a technical milestone; it is a civilisational marker of patience, continuity and resolve. 

The elegance of Homi J. Bhabha’s vision lies in its alignment with India’s natural endowment. With modest uranium reserves but vast thorium deposits, the programme unfolds in three deliberate stages: heavy-water reactors using natural uranium; fast breeder reactors that multiply fissile material, a material that can split and release energy to sustain a nuclear chain reaction; and, finally, thorium-based systems capable of sustaining energy production for centuries. For a country of over a billion people, the demand for energy at scale is not a choice but a necessity—one that cannot be met without harnessing the power of the atom. This is not just an energy strategy; it is a blueprint for sovereignty—transforming scarcity into abundance through science.

Yet, within this design lies a deeper strategic insight. The world remains fundamentally dependent on uranium—a resource India possesses only in limited measure—while thorium, abundant along India’s coasts, remains largely untapped globally. Bhabha’s pathway recognised that thorium cannot release energy on its own; it must first be ‘awakened’. During the fast breeder stage, plutonium is produced, which in turn serves as the trigger, converting thorium into uranium-233—a fissile material capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. In this elegant act of scientific alchemy, India turns its constraint into strength: using what is scarce to unlock what is abundant, and thereby securing an energy future that is not only self-reliant but potentially inexhaustible.

Yet such a vision was never destined for haste. The programme’s long gestation arises from its very architecture. Each stage depends on the successful completion of the one before it; the second cannot proceed without the first, nor the third without the second. The technologies involved are among the most complex humanity has attempted. Fast breeder reactors operate under high neutron flux and demanding engineering conditions, while thorium must first be converted into uranium-233 through a multi-step fuel cycle before it becomes usable as nuclear fuel. Every step demands precision, validation and time. 

To this intrinsic difficulty was added the weight of history. After the Smiling Buddha, India faced decades of technological isolation under regimes such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group. What many nations could access through global collaboration, India had to build painstakingly from first principles. This constraint undoubtedly slowed progress, but it also forged a rare kind of resilience. The programme that emerged is not derivative; it is deeply indigenous—shaped by necessity, refined through persistence, and strengthened by self-reliance. If anywhere in the world there exists a nuclear programme that can truly claim to be homegrown in spirit and substance, it is India’s.

History reminds us that science has often advanced through the movement of minds across borders. Albert Einstein, an immigrant to the United States, reshaped modern physics; Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller were among those who carried Europe’s intellectual legacy into America’s nuclear enterprise. India’s journey, by contrast, unfolded largely without such external inflows—its strength arising from within. In that sense, its achievement is not only technological but civilisational: a demonstration that sustained vision, even under constraint, can build capabilities as profound as any assembled through the advantages of global mobility.

Hereafter, the future moves forward with quiet certainty. With the breeder stage going critical at Kalpakkam, India begins to multiply its fissile resources, preparing the ground for the thorium era. In the coming decades, thorium-based reactor technologies are expected to progress from experimental stages to potential deployment, positioning India among the leading nations in industrialising this fuel cycle. In parallel, nuclear energy is likely to integrate with renewables, helping anchor a stable, clean energy grid. Beyond its borders, India may emerge as a provider of nuclear technologies and frameworks for the Global South—offering not just systems, but a philosophy of building under constraint. 

In reflecting on the journey so far, I consider myself deeply fortunate to have met R. Chidambaram and Anil Kakodkar on several occasions and to have experienced their warmth and affection. As a mechanical engineer, I was struck when Kakodkar Sahib shared that he, too, came from the same discipline. Verghese Kurien, himself a mechanical engineer, embodied the same truth—that excellence is not confined by formal training. Perhaps that is the quiet law of great endeavour: those who surrender to the work before them often transcend their own boundaries, as if carried forward by a larger current of energy.

I have also been privileged to share a long-standing association with Sudhakar Potluri, who devoted a lifetime to atomic energy and later served as Chairman of the Electronics Corporation of India Limited. From him, I gained an appreciation of the extraordinary electronic engineering that underlies nuclear power—the seamless conversion of heat into steam, the precise running of turbines, and the generation of electricity in systems where ‘never a fault’ is not merely an ideal but an uncompromising necessity. As for me, my journey has been modest; I remain a small fry in the presence of such towering individuals, grateful simply to have been a fellow traveller in a boat steered by Dr. Kalam—much like an isotope held in careful balance.

There are days that begin as routine engagements and quietly unfold into moments of reflection—days that leave behind not just memories, but also a gentle reordering of one’s thoughts. My visit to the ICAR – Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA) in Hyderabad on the occasion of World Water Day, celebrated every year on March 22 under the aegis of the United Nations, was one such experience. What began as a social commitment turned into an encounter with science, governance, and, most importantly, the enduring fortitude of the Indian farmer. 

My journey to this moment has been, in many ways, a continuum of seemingly disparate paths. From my early days in defence research, working under the visionary leadership of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on civilian spinoffs of defence technologies, to later stepping into healthcare and contributing to the development of affordable coronary stents, I have often found myself moving across domains. Telemedicine drew me further into global collaborations, connecting institutions across continents, and eventually, these experiences led me—almost organically—into agriculture and rural development. 

Perhaps that is why, when Dr. Vinod Kumar Singh invited me to participate in the Water Day celebrations at CRIDA, I accepted without hesitation. Dr. Singh is an alumnus of G. B. Pant University, my alma mater, and he worked for 18 years in Meerut, my native place. Also, there was a sense of returning to a set of questions that lie at the heart of our civilisation: how we use water, how we grow food, and how we sustain life itself. 

The morning unfolded in three distinct yet interconnected encounters. I reached the institute early, thanks to the quiet Sunday traffic, and spent some time with Dr. B. M. K. Raju, Head of Statistics. What he shared was both simple and profound. In a field study conducted within the same region, with identical seeds, soil and water conditions, maize yields ranged from 3 to 15 quintals per acre. Such variability, he explained, is not accidental. It reflects a complex interplay of management practices, timing, micro-climatic variations and subtle human decisions. 

In that moment, his observation crystallised into a striking insight: artificial intelligence, at its core, is nothing but real-time statistics. Behind the sophistication of algorithms lies the same fundamental principle—recognising patterns, understanding variability, and making decisions under uncertainty. What we often perceive as a technological leap is, in essence, a more refined way of seeing what has always existed within the fabric of reality.

The second encounter brought me face-to-face with the benevolent side of governance. I met Sri M. Kodanda Reddy, a seasoned political leader whose presence carried both experience and quiet conviction. As we spoke, he affectionately embraced me and said that I carried the aura of Dr. Kalam—a remark that moved me deeply, for it reflected not just personal warmth, but the enduring imprint of a great soul on those he touched. He then recalled his time as an MLA, when President Kalam addressed the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, and how that moment had left a lasting impression on him.  It served as a reminder of how ideas, when supported by committed individuals, can travel across institutions and geographies, leaving a lasting impact.

Our conversation turned to the role of elected representatives in translating ideas into action. A dedicated MLA or MP, he said, does more than allocate funds; he or she creates visibility, aligns administrative attention and brings the weight of the system behind meaningful initiatives. Publicity, often dismissed as superficial, can become a powerful catalyst when aligned with purpose. It ensures that good work is not only accomplished but also seen, replicated and scaled.

Yet, the most enduring part of the day lay not in discussions of data or governance, but in my interaction with the farmers who had gathered for the event. These were individuals of modest means, invited to be recognised for their work in water conservation. Their presence carried a quiet dignity—yet beneath it lay something stronger: fortitude shaped by uncertainty, climate variability and systemic inequities. 

There was a language barrier between us, but it seemed almost irrelevant. Many came forward, shook my hand and communicated through their eyes—a silent exchange of warmth and respect. There was something deeply moving in that unspoken connection, as though we were acknowledging, without words, a shared understanding of effort, endurance and purpose. 

When I addressed them, I spoke in Hindi, reflecting on their role in sustaining life itself. It is easy to overlook the sheer scale of what they do: producing just one kilogram of paddy requires nearly 3,000 litres of water. Yet, the economic structures surrounding agriculture seldom recognise this hidden cost. Farmers bear the burden of production, while much of the value is appropriated by intermediaries. The system, in many ways, remains deeply misaligned—both economically inefficient and ecologically unsustainable. One is compelled to ask: by what logic must India produce water-intensive Basmati rice for export—and for whose benefit? Is our water, after all, without value?

We speak of scarcity, yet continue to design systems that encourage waste; we celebrate productivity, yet rarely reward stewardship. What emerges is a deep paradox—one that technology alone cannot resolve. It calls instead for a fundamental rethinking of our incentives, our policies and, above all, our values. Water has never been seen as a commodity.

Rivers, in our civilisational consciousness, are not mere channels of water—they are mothers; and rain is seen as a benediction from the heavens. When I spoke of the Godavari and Krishna as mothers, the entire audience responded with spontaneous applause—an instinctive affirmation of a truth they have lived with, not merely learned. In that moment, it became evident that this is not symbolism alone, but a deeply internalised way of relating to nature. This cultural memory carries profound ecological wisdom. It reminds us that sustainability is not a modern construct to be engineered, but an ancient practice to be remembered—one that we have gradually drifted away from, even as its relevance has only grown stronger.

On a lighter note, I shared a simple thought with the farmers: that amidst all the discussions of water scarcity, each of us should at least ensure we drink three to four litres of water a day—the most basic foundation of health. It drew laughter and applause, but it also carried a subtle message—that even in complexity, there is space for simplicity. 

As the event concluded, I was presented with a Kondapalli bullock cart—a handcrafted toy that carries a history of over 400 years. Made from softwood sourced from nearby hills, these artefacts represent not just craftsmanship, but a way of life rooted in patience, precision and continuity. They are reminders that tradition, when preserved with care, becomes a living bridge between the past and the present. 

As I drove back home, I found myself reflecting on the quiet coherence of the day. Science, governance and culture—often treated as separate domains—had come together in a single narrative. And at the centre of it all stood the farmer: resilient, adaptive and quietly steadfast.

In a world increasingly defined by complexity, speed and abstraction, there is something profoundly reassuring about this grounded strength. It reminds us that beneath layers of systems and structures lies a core that continues to sustain us—a core built on effort, trust and a deep, almost instinctive connection to the land.

Perhaps that is the quiet lesson this day offers. That progress is not merely about adding new layers of technology or policy, but about rediscovering and strengthening what already exists. The future of water, agriculture and sustainability may not lie solely in grand solutions, but in the careful alignment of knowledge, intent and human values.

And above all, that amidst all our discussions of scarcity and crisis, there remains a quiet, enduring abundance—in the fortitude of our farmers, in the wisdom of our traditions, and in the possibility of doing things differently, if only we choose to see clearly.

There are certain timeless truths that can be ignored only by the most callous among us. One such truth is the Buddhist concept of Triple Refuge: Buddham saranam gacchami—I take refuge in the Buddha (the Enlightened One or Teacher); Dhammam saranam gacchami—I take refuge in the Dhamma (the teachings or truth); and Sangham saranam gacchami—I take refuge in the Sangha (the community).

Confusion is the hallmark of modern times. Propaganda through electronic media and the creation of a consumer society have pushed the majority of people to live lives as cogs in the ‘machine of the world’. But there is also a minority who can see through this ‘game’ and refuse to succumb, albeit at a great cost. Their sensitivity draws them inward, and they live with the risk of becoming socially inept or losing their mental balance.

I just finished reading the novel 1Q84 by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, which beautifully explores this problem in the contemporary world. A master writer, Murakami uses ‘The City of Cats’ as a metaphor for passive withdrawal from reality on a population level. In the novel, the protagonist misses his train, drifts into a town where cats live like humans, and slowly becomes trapped in a repetitive, silent existence. He, however, manages to escape by boarding the last train that passes through. Murakami’s warning is clear: If you disengage for too long, the world replaces you. After a point, there may not even be a train left to carry you away.

Murakami then discusses a ‘two-moon world’—a heightened perception experienced by certain individuals as a subtle shift in reality because of their superior cognitive ability. It is not consciously chosen. People sensitive to hidden layers of reality become aware of forces that others ignore and are pulled deeper into their inner world, a reality partly of their own making. In both cases, there is a withdrawal from the real world. One is an escape through dullness, the other is estrangement born of awareness.

Murakami maps two dangers of modern existence: the sleep of indifference—routine, unquestioned living and emotional withdrawal—which can eventually cause people to vanish quietly, as if permanently settled in the City of Cats. On the other hand, the perception of hidden truths creates its own burden. Feeling too deeply, such people risk losing their connection to shared reality and becoming isolated. What makes 1Q84 powerful is that its protagonists, Tengo and Aomame, neither fall into a City of Cats-like passivity nor dissolve into the madness of hyper-awareness. They hold onto each other. Love becomes the anchor to a shared, chosen reality.

If I extend this into the world of the Bhagavad Gita, the City of Cats represents tamasic drift (inertia, unconsciousness), the two-moon world reflects rajasic, overactive perception (restlessness, fragmentation), and the union of Tengo and Aomame points towards sattva (balance, clarity). Murakami, without naming it, is circling a very ancient truth: both dullness and hyper-sensitivity can disconnect us from reality. What restores us is meaningful connection. How do we remain truly alive in a world that either numbs us or overwhelms us?

What Sangham sharanam gacchami really implies is: ‘I take refuge in the Sangha (community).’ Here, the Sangha is not merely a social group. It is a field of shared awareness, a corrective mirror, and a stabilising force when perception becomes uncertain. Awakening (bodhi) is individual, but stabilising that awakening requires a community, because insight without grounding can drift. Enlightenment without relationship risks becoming delusion. The community protects truth from turning into isolation.

The Taittiriya Upanishad declares in its invocation:

सह नाववतु।
सह नौ भुनक्तु।
सह वीर्यं करवावहै।
तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विद्विषावहै॥

May we be safeguarded together, and

Nourished in unity.

May we work with shared strength,

Learn to be luminous, and

Not fall into discord.

When we bring all this together, a deeper synthesis emerges: we do not merely need community for safety—we need it for illumination. Just as one mirror may warp, but many aligned mirrors reveal the truth more faithfully. Truth is not weakened by sharing—it is clarified by it, whereas isolation magnifies both illusion and emptiness.

The Taittiriya Upanishad does not say: ‘Let me be enlightened’; it says: ‘Let us be luminous together.’ And the Buddha does not say: ‘I am enough.’ He says: ‘Take refuge in the Sangha.’ When the path becomes subtle, and the inner sky grows vast, it is not solitude but shared presence that keeps the light from dissolving into darkness. All great teachers keep their bright students close to them. All great leaders are supported by capable and wise ministers. In good families, people have their dinner together, discussing how the day has passed.

With the world compressed into a mobile screen, it is possible to feel engaged yet remain untouched by real experience. One can drift into passive living—scrolling, consuming, becoming a cog in a larger machine—or, at the other extreme, become inwardly fragmented, overstimulated and socially withdrawn. Both, in different ways, distance us from truly living. What anchors me is the simple, enduring truth that life unfolds in relationships—in conversations with family, in unhurried moments with friends, and in small acknowledgements of the people who form the fabric of everyday society. These interactions are not incidental; they are what keep the mind steady and the heart awake.

So while I read a great deal, I also write by hand on paper, water the potted plants in my balcony, make my tea, and sit quietly to watch the sunrise. I never forward a WhatsApp ‘Good morning’ message; instead, I type it every day, addressing the recipient by name and the day—Monday, Tuesday, and so on. Despite my health condition, I make it a point to step out, visit institutions and speak to people—to engage with the living world, and to avoid becoming lost in my own mental world.

The bodily senses, I increasingly feel, are the true gift of being alive. Even gods are said not to possess bodies; only humans do. I have not yet fully understood the mind, but this much I am certain of: when it drifts too far from the body and its immediate surroundings, it tends to create its own difficulties, often leaving one in a waterless, deep well of despair. In this journey, I remain deeply connected to my friends from my university days—Sameer and Suresh Patel—and to my colleagues from DRDO—Adalat Ali, Sagar and Sheridon—and, above all, to my younger brother Salil. They are my anchors, my quiet points of return, my existential ‘earthing’.

At the same time, I remain mindful of how easily one can seek quick relief from stress or emptiness through harmful escapes, especially substance abuse, which only accelerates decline by weakening clarity, discipline and purpose. It does not resolve problems; it reduces our capacity to respond to them. In the end, I am reminded that life is not lost in a single dramatic moment, but gradually—through disconnection from people, from presence and from meaning. To remain truly alive is to stay connected to one’s surroundings, to be aware of others’ feelings, and thereby to remain grounded in a shared reality—not a prisoner of one’s own mental castle in a concrete jungle.

When I sat on the chair on stage to be felicitated on the 13^th Foundation Day of the Ozone Hospital, on February 28, 2026, and Telangana Transport Minister Mr. Ponnam Prabhakar, Telugu film star of yesteryears Mr. Suman Talwar, and Chairman Mr. Satya Sai Prasad wrapped the ceremonial shawl around me, I wondered: Who am I? Am I the mechanical engineer who worked as a teaching associate? Or, the scientist who calculated the stress tolerances for missile structures? Am I the technologist who translated defence systems into life-saving medical devices and helped develop special steel for a coronary stent? Am I the mentee of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, and the co-author of Wings of Fire? Or, am I someone who cannot be fitted into any system—a nobody who kept trying to be somebody? 

After the glittering event, as I was driven back by my son Amol, rather than feeling elated, I felt quietly unsettled—drawn inward toward reflection. The next day, alone at home, I gazed at the photograph of my father on the bookshelf, overseeing the long, fulfilling hours I spent at my desk each day. Public perception tempts me to believe in a coherent arc—engineer to innovator, innovator to author, author to mentor. It suggests a seamless progression, as though my identity were a single, uninterrupted block carved with deliberate symmetry. Yet lived experience is rarely so orderly. What appears linear in retrospect is, in reality, shaped by pauses, detours and invisible reckonings.

The past is not one solid block. It is made up of many layers of time, built one on top of the other. Each layer was shaped by the needs and pressures of its own moment, and none of them replaces what came before. Everything remains within us—like layers of sediment in a rock, formed over time, pressed by circumstances, and quietly shaping who we are inside.

As a young mechanical engineer pursuing my master’s degree, I spent five formative years teaching engineering students. I taught kinematics—how mechanisms work, and how velocity and acceleration vectors rotate, forming instantaneous centres for the links in the mechanism. In the classroom, clarity mattered as much as correctness, and patience with young students’ queries demanded a maturity that I gained quite early in my trial by fire.

When I later joined the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and began working on missile structures, I amazed my seniors with my clarity about the degrees of freedom in a missile’s flight path, which I acquired while teaching kinematics earlier. I effortlessly slid into the world of shear forces, bending moments, vibration modes and stress analysis. I felt as if I were walking a pre-laid-out path. 

The work in the missile laboratory demanded competence and responsibility. It demanded discipline and required systems thinking. That phase trained me to respect engineering’s capacity to manufacture hardware and to account for material defects and other unforeseen factors, such as stress concentrations, which were quantified and accounted for as factors of safety. While the design must withstand the rigours of application, it must also be agile and ‘just sufficient’. 

My mind felt like a fruit maturing on its tree—gathering sweetness from inquiry, firmness from responsibility, and readiness from the quiet certainty that the time to bear weight had arrived. That double urgency—pedagogical accountability while teaching in the university, and the engineering rigour of a missile laboratory—seasoned me. I learned that precision is not coldness—it is care. And it instilled a lifelong reverence for the structures, technical and intellectual, that quietly keep both machines and minds intact.

Working under Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam added another layer of depth. He was not merely my Director; he became my mentor. When defence technologies began to yield civilian spinoffs, a new sense of urgency emerged—the urgency of translation. How could the rigour and materials developed for strategic purposes be redirected toward saving lives? My transition into medical innovation was not a break from my past but a reorientation of it. The moral horizon widened. Technology was no longer only about capability; it became about the urgency of compassion embedded in design. That, too, formed a layer.

Co-authoring Dr Kalam’s autobiography, Wings of Fire, introduced me to yet another urgency—the need to shape a life into a narrative so that it might continue to inspire. The book travelled into countless hands. It connected science with aspiration, discipline with dream. Being publicly known as Dr. Kalam’s pupil became part of how others saw me. But even that recognition was only sediment—one more layer formed under the pressure of responsibility and purpose.

On the stage, wrapped in an expensive silk shawl, flowers in hand, under glittering lights, all these layers converged inward. The engineer was still within me. The medical innovator stood beside him. The student of Kalam reflected quietly. The author observed. None cancelled the other. They coexisted. If someone had asked me, ‘Who are you?’ at different points in my life, the answer would have been different each time—and yet each answer would have been true in that moment. That is when the insight became clear: I am not a single, fixed identity—I am the layered imprint of all that once felt urgent.

In that reflective pause, I remembered my father. He passed away at forty-nine, before I was even employed. His absence was one of the earliest urgencies in my life—an unspoken pressure to stand firm, to honour what he had embodied, and to become steady sooner than perhaps I might otherwise have. Loss leaves a deep sediment; it quietly shapes resilience. I realised that whatever recognition I received that evening rested also on foundations he had laid long before I understood their value. All I missed that evening was seeing my father sitting in the front row, so that I might have handed him the shawl when I came down. 

Now, staying mostly at home for medical reasons, I find another kind of season unfolding. Constraint has become opportunity. The hours that once belonged to travel and public engagements—entropy disguised as work—are now given instead to reading and writing, quiet acts of continuation. Even now, sedimentation continues. New urgencies arise: preserving health without surrendering purpose, mentoring without imposing, and distilling experience into wisdom rather than nostalgia. Identity remains a living formation. It is not a finished rock, but a landscape still being shaped by time, reflection and the gentle pressure of becoming.

Who am I? I am the history of my urgencies—moments that demanded action and shaped the course of my life. I am the discipline of engineering, tempered and compressed by responsibility. I am the moral expansion born of the mentorship of a great man, and the effort to translate technology into healing. In many ways, I am a narrative that tries to connect aspiration with compassion. 

And yet, this story does not belong to me alone. It is a narrative of a son whose father’s life was cut short, but who drew inspiration from the elders who crossed his path. Prof. Ashok Kumar Dhol and Prof. Sharat Chandra Malviya shaped my value system. Prof. Ajay Dron and Prof. Arun Prakash moulded my emotional heart. They have all left this world, yet I can still hear their words and follow their counsel. 

And then there are my students—more than two hundred of them—who pursued an MBA in Healthcare and Hospital Management at the University of Hyderabad, where I had the privilege of teaching as an adjunct professor between 2008 and 2017. Today, they are spread across the global healthcare landscape, carrying their own journeys forward—Raman in Australia, and Sama in the United States.

And how can I not think of the readers of my blogs, who pause, reflect, respond and carry my words into their own circles? In them, I sense that my life does not end with me—it extends quietly in many directions, like layers in a rock, settling, enduring, and becoming part of something larger than myself.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend nearly three hours in conversation at the Care Foundation, graciously hosted by its CEO, Mr. S. G. Prasad, whose quiet commitment to accessible healthcare has sustained many meaningful initiatives over the years. The meeting brought together Mr. B. V. Satya Sai Prasad, a lawyer-turned-industrialist now deeply engaged in promoting artificial intelligence in healthcare, and his daughter Deepti, a biomedical engineer whose professional journey mirrors the global evolution of modern medicine itself. Deepti had worked at the Care Foundation in 2009 before moving to the United Kingdom, where she spent fifteen years within the National Health Service, contributing to healthcare technology and digital transformation programs. She has now returned to India to assume leadership at Ozone Hospitals in Hyderabad, an institution established by her father. What began as a cordial meeting soon grew into a long and searching conversation about the future of healthcare in India—not merely as an industry, but as a moral and technological system still in transition.

There is little intellectual value today in endlessly debating whether healthcare has become commercialised. That question has already been settled by history. Modern medicine is inherently technology-intensive: linear accelerators that deliver precision radiotherapy, robotic surgical platforms, molecular diagnostics, advanced imaging systems, and intensive-care monitoring infrastructures all require enormous capital investment and continuous maintenance. Hospitals, therefore, operate within economic realities. To lament commercialisation without proposing structural alternatives is to engage in nostalgia rather than reform. The real question is whether anything can be done to prevent healthcare from drifting further away from equity and accessibility.

The healthcare industry, as it has evolved, is marked by a striking paradox. Hospitals accused of profiteering remain perpetually full. Physicians celebrated for compassion often live lives of remarkable prosperity, their appointment calendars filled far into the future, serving those who can pay huge fees. Meanwhile, ordinary patients struggle through fragmented care pathways, delayed diagnoses and financial uncertainty. This contradiction is not merely ethical; it is systemic. Healthcare today suffers less from a lack of knowledge than from flawed design.

Our discussion naturally returned to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, whom Mr. Sai Prasad had met in 2001 when Dr. Kalam was serving at Anna University as Professor of Technology & Societal Transformation. Dr. Kalam consistently pondered how advanced technology could become both expansive and affordable for the common citizen. Healthcare was central to that inquiry. I gifted Deepti a copy of my book, Innovate Locally to Win Globally, which recounts the journey of Mr. D. A. Prasanna, the founding CEO of Wipro GE Medical Systems, and the emergence of India’s medical technology industry from near-total import dependence in 1990 to a multibillion-dollar export ecosystem today. The lesson from this transformation is clear: affordability does not arise from rejecting technology but from indigenising and democratising it.

Indian hospitals today are undeniably world-class. Patients arrive from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and even the United States seeking cardiac surgery, oncology care, transplantation, and advanced diagnostics because outcomes are comparable while costs remain reasonable. Medical tourism quietly affirms India’s clinical excellence. Yet a deeper question remains unresolved: what about the ordinary citizen? How can quality healthcare become routine rather than a premium service? Mr. Sai Prasad reflected on his involvement in shaping the Aarogyasri Scheme introduced by the late Chief Minister Dr. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, a program that enabled government-funded treatment of economically disadvantaged patients in private hospitals. It was an unconventional solution that liberated many patients from infrastructure limitations within parts of the public system. He recalled attempting to advocate a revenue-neutral sustainability model, though political realities constrained structural redesign. Nevertheless, Aarogyasri demonstrated that policy innovation, when aligned with financing mechanisms and institutional participation, can rapidly expand access.

Since that period, India has witnessed three transformative developments that together form the foundation of equitable healthcare delivery: digital identity through Aadhaar, enabling authenticated patient records; expansion of publicly funded health insurance programs; and massive investment in public medical infrastructure through new AIIMS institutions, cancer centres and medical colleges. Equally significant has been the Jan Aushadhi Yojana, which provides quality-assured generic medicines at nearly one-fifth the cost of branded equivalents. I have personally used these medicines for more than a year and have found them clinically reliable, reminding me that the cost of medicines is often shaped more by market forces than by production costs. The architecture for inclusive healthcare already exists; what remains is intelligent integration.

It was at this point that artificial intelligence entered our conversation—not as a matter of technological enthusiasm but as a practical necessity. Three possibilities appeared almost self-evident. It starts with the prescription of medicine. Despite the widespread availability of generics, prescription behaviour remains influenced by the legacy of brands. AI-driven clinical decision support systems integrated into electronic prescribing platforms could automatically recommend bioequivalent generic alternatives aligned with national formularies. Machine-learning models analysing prescription patterns could detect statistical anomalies suggestive of sponsored prescribing practices, allowing transparency rather than enforcement to reshape behaviour. Technology may accomplish what regulation alone rarely achieves—a form of creative destruction where unethical practices gradually lose viability.

The second possibility lies in strengthening primary healthcare, historically the weakest link in India’s medical ecosystem. Many rural and peri-urban centres function without physicians, prompting patients to bypass primary care and overwhelm tertiary hospitals. Imagine instead AI-enabled primary health nodes where nurses, community health workers, or trained volunteers use AI-powered smartphones capable of clinical speech recognition, symptom capture and triage decision support. Through telemedicine connectivity with central physician command centres, prescriptions could be validated remotely while electronic health records are generated at first contact. Vital signs monitoring, probabilistic risk stratification, and structured referral pathways would ensure continuity of care. Except in emergencies, hospital visits would follow digital registration, transforming healthcare from episodic treatment into longitudinal care management. Intelligence would become distributed even when doctors remain scarce.

The third domain concerns trust—particularly billing transparency. Healthcare billing remains opaque to patients who lack the technical ability to question complex invoices generated through Hospital Information Systems and Management Information Systems. AI-based audit engines could analyse billing patterns using anomaly detection algorithms, comparing procedures, consumables and clinical pathways against evidence-based norms. Outliers could be flagged automatically, while blockchain-backed audit trails create immutable records accessible to patients themselves. Technology would not accuse; it would illuminate, restoring balance in a relationship historically weighted against the patient.

No external agency will design this future for India. Just as the nation built Aadhaar, transformed payments through UPI, expanded access to generic medicines, and scaled public health insurance, the next transformation must emerge from Indian entrepreneurs, clinicians, engineers and institutions acting together with clarity of purpose. Artificial Intelligence must not merely assist diagnosis; it must audit systems, democratise access and restore trust. As our meeting concluded and Mr. Sai Prasad and Deepti departed—encouraged by Mr. S. G. Prasad’s quiet optimism and the shared promise of bringing together people of conscience—I felt not merely hopeful, but deeply reassured. India is not only attempting to solve its own healthcare challenges; it is slowly shaping a template for nearly five billion people across the Global South who face similar constraints of affordability, workforce shortages and uneven infrastructure. If guided by conscience as much as computation, AI may yet return technology to its original purpose—improving lives by bettering livelihoods. Perhaps that was always Dr. Kalam’s nascent vision: not a quest for admiration, but a responsibility for action. Technology fulfils its purpose only when it serves the last person in the queue.

In my youth, when I first read Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, published in 1915, it seemed to belong to a distant, shadowed landscape of European modernism—strange, unsettling, intellectually luminous, yet safely contained within literature. One reads differently at twenty, differently again at forty. Now, in my seventies, I find that the story has quietly crossed the boundary between page and world. Gregor Samsa no longer lies only in a narrow room of fiction; he appears, flickeringly, in the restless movement of our cities, in the blue glow of handheld screens, in the hurried footsteps of the young who labour without certainty, protection, or even the assurance of being remembered. Time, which softens many impressions, has sharpened this one. I do not merely recall Kafka now—I return to him as one returns to an unfinished question.

What troubles me is not hardship alone. India has known poverty and endurance, yet it has also sustained neighbourhoods of care, invisible threads of reciprocity, and a moral vocabulary that ensured no one disappeared entirely from the circle of recognition. The disquiet I feel today is subtler, almost soundless: the thinning of identity itself. In the expanding gig economy, I watch young men and women in perpetual motion—delivering meals, steering strangers through traffic, coding unseen architectures of the night, moderating conversations they will never join. They are everywhere visible yet nowhere known. Their labour is measured to the second; their lives remain immeasurable. Ratings rise and fall like small, indifferent tides. A missed day, a moment’s illness, an algorithm’s quiet judgment—and the fragile thread of belonging begins to loosen. Looking at them, I feel the faint, persistent echo of Kafka’s insect—not grotesque in body, but diminished in social presence, reduced to function without story.

Age brings with it an altered scale of perception. One begins to notice not only what is built, but what quietly recedes. I have lived through decades that promised continuity: institutions that offered lifelong work, professions that carried an inner dignity, and social contracts—imperfect, contested, yet real—that linked effort with security. The young inherit astonishing technologies, velocities of connection we could scarcely imagine; yet the ground beneath their feet feels less stable than ever before. They improvise brilliantly, adapt with courage, and move with a fluency that commands admiration. And yet, beneath this brilliance, I sense a civilisation learning to celebrate flexibility while gently withdrawing responsibility. Progress glitters; assurance fades.

Perhaps this is why Kafka returns with such quiet insistence. His question was never truly about transformation into an insect. It was about recognition—about what remains of the human when usefulness becomes the only language spoken. In the gig economy, usefulness is immediate and dissolvable. One is needed intensely for an hour, forgotten the next. Efficiency governs; covenant retreats. There is elegance in the system’s design, even a kind of technological poetry. Yet beneath that elegance lies an absence difficult to name: the promise that society fails to keep with its youth. Work exists, but work without protection becomes a delicate form of invisibility.

I find myself unexpectedly restless in the face of this reality. Old age is often imagined as a season of detachment, of philosophical acceptance. Instead, I discover a heightened tenderness towards vulnerability—perhaps because dependence no longer appears theoretical. To see millions begin their adult lives already exposed to such precarity evokes not anger, nor nostalgia alone, but a quiet sorrow that settles like evening light—gentle, persistent, impossible to ignore. One wonders whether speed has outrun wisdom, whether innovation has moved faster than compassion can follow.

And yet despair feels too simple, almost a failure of imagination. I have witnessed too much resilience in our people, too much unrecorded generosity, to believe that invisibility is destiny. History reminds us that systems forgetting humanity eventually confront their own incompleteness. The gig economy, still young, need not remain a landscape without shelter. It could grow toward something more humane—where flexibility walks beside security, where technology enlarges dignity rather than thinning it, where society renews its quiet promise to those who carry its future in their uncelebrated labour.

Reflecting on Kafka now, I am struck by another tenderness in his fate. He did not live to see the reach of his own words; recognition came largely after his death. Such is the mysterious endurance of the written thought: it travels beyond the writer’s breath, waits patiently in time, and awakens when the world becomes ready to hear. Ideas, like seeds, choose their own season. That a solitary imagination from a century ago can illuminate the anxieties of our digital present is itself a form of hope—the assurance that meaning outlives circumstance.

Age, then, becomes not withdrawal but witness. To grow old is to watch patterns gather across decades, to recognise when metaphor hardens into reality, and to feel—quietly, insistently—the responsibility to speak before silence turns into consent. My unease is, therefore, not complaint but care, a refusal to accept anonymity as the price the young must pay for opportunity. Care, in later life, often takes this form: a gentle persistence of attention.

Kafka, returning softly through the corridors of memory, offers not darkness alone but warning—and also invitation. Even in one’s seventies, the heart still hopes that stories might end differently than before; that recognition may arrive in time; that dignity may prove more durable than efficiency. I am reminded of this in the smallest of encounters: the brief moment at my doorway when a young gig worker places a packet into my hands, his eyes already divided between the present and the next demand waiting inside the earplug-connected mobile through which another customer’s voice is calling. He carries several packets at once, time folded tightly around him, and from me he seeks nothing more than a good rating—an invisible gesture that may shape his remaining day. Our exchange lasts only seconds, yet something in it lingers: the quiet asymmetry between a life measured in hurried deliveries and a life pausing long enough to notice. And so, the question returns, tenderly but insistently: whether somewhere, within the swift machinery of the modern world, space may still be made for the simple, irreducible presence of the human being—seen, named, and held in quiet regard.

When I pause at a traffic signal and see helmeted riders waiting in the dust-filled air, or glimpse tired eyes illuminated by midnight screens, I do not see insects. I see nascent citizens of a future still searching for its moral language. Their anonymity is not natural; it is constructed—and what is constructed may yet be reimagined. 

If my generation holds any remaining task, perhaps it is simply this: to insist, without bitterness and without noise, that progress must encompass compassion within it, or remain incomplete. For in the end, the truest metamorphosis is not Gregor’s, nor the world’s machinery of work, but the awakening of recognition within us. And if that awakening comes—even quietly, even late—then perhaps the story is still being written toward the light.