Recently, my son Amol brought me Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka, and my biomedical engineering pupil, Deepti Sai Prasad, presented me with an elegant Queen Elizabeth box of tea bags she brought from London. They could hardly have chosen a gift that would have delighted me more.

I love tea. Whenever I am asked, “Tea or coffee?”, my answer comes without a moment’s hesitation: “Tea.”

I grew up drinking tea. In my native Meerut, tea is not merely brewed; it is almost cooked. Strong black tea leaves—typically the robust Assam variety—are boiled vigorously with milk and generous quantities of sugar, with two teaspoons per cup being the norm. Ginger and cardamom are added as the mixture simmers, allowing their flavours to infuse the tea. The entire house becomes fragrant. Tea is not only consumed; it is announced.

Years later, after moving to Hyderabad, I encountered another marvel—Irani tea. It belongs to an altogether different tradition. A robust black tea blend, usually rich in Assam CTC leaves, is brewed into a concentrated decoction, while the milk is simmered separately for hours, developing a natural sweetness through gentle caramelisation. The two meet only at the moment of serving. The result is velvety, aromatic, and almost meditative—a cup that rewards patience as much as craftsmanship. A plate of Osmania biscuits, lightly dipped into the tea before each bite, completes the experience. It feels less like drinking tea than performing a small daily ritual of contentment.

That cup also awakened my curiosity. Every beverage carries not only a flavour but a civilisation. Behind its aroma lie journeys across continents, encounters between cultures, and centuries of commerce, conquest and adaptation. The more I reflected on tea, the more I realised that it is not merely a drink but one of history’s most remarkable travellers.

There is a great deal of history behind tea. Tea never grew naturally in England; the climate required for the evergreen shrub simply does not exist there. Tea is native to China, where it had been cultivated and cherished for centuries before Europe discovered its allure. Yet England became its most influential global promoter because it understood something larger than agriculture: a product can be culturally appropriated by those who control its trade, shape its image, and weave it into the fabric of everyday life.

The British East India Company played a decisive role in transforming tea from a Chinese luxury into a global commodity. It first imported tea on a vast scale and, when dependence on China became commercially inconvenient, encouraged the development of tea plantations in Assam, Darjeeling, the Nilgiris and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). Yet Britain’s greatest achievement lay not in growing tea but in giving it a distinctive cultural identity. Through afternoon tea, fine porcelain, etiquette, conversation, and the rituals of domestic hospitality, tea came to symbolise refinement and social order. Carried by empire, commerce and literature, this distinctly British way of drinking tea spread across much of the world.

The English transformed tea from an agricultural product into a social institution. They refined not only its trade but also its preparation. Though the British did not invent tea drinking; they transformed it into a distinctive social ritual. Water is brought almost to the boil, loose leaves are allowed to infuse in a teapot, and warm milk is poured into the cup first—a practice said to have protected delicate porcelain from cracking—before adding the strained tea. The ritual possesses an elegance born of centuries of repetition.

Tea punctuates the English day. It begins with the first cup on waking and continues through breakfast, mid-morning, afternoon tea with sandwiches or scones, and the traditional late-afternoon gathering, usually at five o’clock. High tea, despite its aristocratic reputation, was originally the hearty evening meal of the working classes, served at a high dining table with substantial fare and tea. For many households, the day ends with yet another comforting cup.

The world of tea has its own aristocracy. Earl Grey, delicately scented with bergamot, is perhaps the most celebrated blend, while English Breakfast draws its strength from teas grown in Assam, Kenya and Sri Lanka. Darjeeling, cultivated on the mist-covered slopes of the Himalayas, is often called the ‘Champagne of teas’ for its floral aroma and muscatel notes. Ceylon teas are bright and brisk, Kenyan teas add colour and body, and Assam provides the rich malty depth that anchors many of the world’s favourite blends.

Exploring these varieties inevitably raises another question. If tea possesses such extraordinary diversity, why do so many people still reach instinctively for coffee? The two beverages occupy neighbouring places in our daily lives, yet they arrive at their flavours by remarkably different paths. Tea reveals the character of a leaf; coffee is transformed by fire. Hundreds of volatile aromatic compounds are formed as coffee beans are roasted at high temperatures, producing flavours ranging from chocolate and caramel to toasted nuts and smoke.

A fresh tea leaf contains several thousand naturally occurring chemical compounds. During withering, rolling, oxidation (often called fermentation in the tea trade), and drying, these compounds rearrange themselves into an astonishing spectrum of aromas and flavours. Scientists have identified well over 600 volatile compounds that contribute to tea’s aroma, while thousands of other compounds influence its colour, taste, mouthfeel and potential health benefits. Polyphenols, such as catechins and theaflavins, contribute to tea’s antioxidant activity, while amino acids—especially L-theanine—produce a gentle sweetness and promote an unusual state of relaxed alertness.

Both beverages contain caffeine, and the caffeine molecule is chemically identical whether it comes from tea or coffee. The difference lies not in the molecule but in its company. A typical cup of tea contains less caffeine than a cup of coffee and also provides L-theanine, an amino acid found almost exclusively in tea. Together with tea’s naturally occurring polyphenols, L-theanine appears to modulate the subjective effects of caffeine, promoting a state of calm alertness rather than intense stimulation. Many tea drinkers, therefore, experience a steadier, more sustained wakefulness, without the pronounced surge—and, for some, the subsequent slump—that often follows a strong cup of coffee. Tea does not so much propel the mind as gently prepare it: awake, attentive and yet unhurried. Perhaps that is why the act of drinking tea so easily becomes a small ceremony of reflection, opening a quiet space in which ordinary things begin to reveal their depth.

Reading Virginia Woolf taught me that the deepest truths often arrive disguised as the smallest moments. A room, a window, a flower in a vase, the quiet ceremony of making tea—such things do not interrupt life; they are life. I often think of her while waiting for tea leaves to unfurl in hot water. Their fragrance cannot be hurried; it asks only for stillness. Then, almost imperceptibly, the mind loosens its grip on the day’s clamour. Thoughts that had been jostling for attention drift apart like clouds after rain, and an inward silence begins to gather. My own ritual is equally simple. Every morning around seven, and again at four in the afternoon, I prepare a cup of strong black tea, briefly boiling the leaves in water while warming the milk separately before the two meet in the cup. I have long since abandoned sugar. If a guest happens to arrive—which is less frequent these days—I gladly brew another pot. For all its chemistry and ceremony, tea remains, above all, a companion: to thought when one is alone, and to conversation when one is not.

Perhaps that is why tea is more than a beverage; it is a way of inhabiting time. A cup demands neither urgency nor distraction. The warmth against the palms, the rising fragrance, the deepening colour, the first sip, and the lingering aftertaste gently draw the wandering mind back to the present moment. One cannot hurry good tea; it quietly teaches patience. For a few unhurried minutes, yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s anxieties surrender their hold. The mind returns to the only place where life is ever lived—the present. If there is any philosophy in my daily cup, it is simply this: happiness rarely arrives with fanfare. More often, it unfolds quietly, like the fragrance of freshly brewed tea.

I was invited to address nearly 500 students during their first week at GITAM University in Hyderabad. I was hosted by Dr. Motahar Reza, Director of the GITAM School of Science. A native of Murshidabad in West Bengal, Dr. Reza trained at IIT Kharagpur, worked across computational fluid mechanics, machine learning and data science, and joined GITAM in 2020. His journey from fluid dynamics to artificial intelligence made him an ideal host for a conversation about how learning itself is changing.

GITAM began in Visakhapatnam in 1980 as the Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management. The acronym has since become an educational brand, with campuses in Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. This year, the university is home to 28,000 full-time students—young, energetic, curious and ambitious. Yet scale alone does not define a university. What struck me was its carefully curated environment: orderly without being oppressive, ambitious without appearing anxious, and imbued with the Tagorean aspiration, ‘Where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high.’

I chose ‘The Three Habits in the AI Era’ as the subject of my address. My message was simple: do not fear artificial intelligence; form habits that help it amplify your intelligence. The three habits were: Ask, Speak and Write.

Ask AI one meaningful question every day. Once a week, select one idea that arises from those questions and speak about it for three minutes. Let AI transcribe the recording and polish the language. Then study the polished version: What became clearer? Did the machine improve the grammar, or alter the thought? Finally, write the improved version by hand in a dated notebook.

Asking cultivates curiosity; speaking reveals gaps in thought; writing consolidates learning and strengthens memory. The student also learns to inspect rather than passively accept an AI output. Sustained through four years, the notebook can become a personal intellectual autobiography—perhaps a 200-page book authored before graduation.

The students received the idea warmly. Afterwards, Dr. Reza hosted lunch with faculty colleagues and Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, one of the finest green chemists of our time and a former Secretary of the Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology. Despite his eminence, he possesses the warmth and humility of a true scholar. A university is revealed as much by conversations around a table as by lectures in an auditorium.

During lunch, my thoughts returned to mathematics. Mathematics has always fascinated me, although I could never claim mastery of it. During my master’s programme at G. B. Pant University, I chose Tensor Methods in Continuum Mechanics as an elective and only just secured a B grade. Yet the course gave me a sufficient grounding in matrix algebra to prove invaluable later in operational research and mechanical vibrations. During discussions at DRDL on six-degree-of-freedom modelling—the three translational and three rotational motions of a missile—I found myself unexpectedly confident and vocal.

This experience taught me that mathematical education cannot be judged only by marks secured at the moment of instruction. A concept imperfectly grasped today may become the instrument through which one understands a real-life system years later. Education deposits structures in the mind; application activates them.

I therefore asked Dr. Reza, “How do young students see mathematics today, and how is AI affecting its teaching and learning? Mathematics has always required a heady combination of rigour and intuition. Does AI strengthen that combination—or quietly undermine it?”

The answer lies not in the intelligence of the machine, but in the wisdom with which we choose to wield it.

Mathematics contains four interacting layers. The conceptual layer concerns meaning: What is a derivative, a vector or an eigenvalue? The procedural layer concerns operations such as differentiation and integration. The representational layer connects equations with graphs, tables, simulations and physical phenomena. The metacognitive layer concerns thinking about one’s own thinking. It asks: Why did I choose this method? Where could it fail? Is the answer logically, dimensionally and physically plausible?

Traditional classrooms often overemphasise procedure because it is easiest to demonstrate and examine. AI can perform many procedures rapidly. That does not make mathematics obsolete; it reveals that procedure was never the whole of mathematics. Done till here

A large language model is most useful at the conceptual and linguistic interface. It can explain an idea through an analogy, a graph, a physical example or simpler language. It can help students whose English is functional rather than fluent, generate graded examples, compare alternative methods, and ask Socratic questions. A computer algebra system manipulates symbols; a numerical solver approximates solutions that resist closed-form expression; a visualisation engine reveals parameter sensitivity; and a proof assistant verifies that deductions follow from stated axioms. Mathematical literacy now includes knowing which technology to trust for which task.

This is a neuro-symbolic partnership. Neural models excel at pattern recognition, language and analogy; symbolic systems are stronger at exact manipulation and formal verification. The human must still choose the assumptions, formulate the model, interpret the results and decide whether the answer is relevant.

The distinction matters because a language model generates plausible sequences, while mathematics demands valid relationships. A convincing explanation is not a mathematical proof. A confident derivation may contain a sign error, an unstated assumption or an invalid cancellation. One recent evaluation found that although 90 per cent of AI tutoring dialogues appeared instructionally strong, only just over half were mathematically correct throughout. OECD analyses likewise warn that generative AI may improve task performance without producing genuine learning when students outsource the intellectual work.

The pedagogical principle should therefore be:

AI may assist the struggle, but it must not abolish productive struggle.

A sound mathematics lesson in the AI era might follow five stages: Conjecture – Attempt – Dialogue – Verification – Reconstruction.

First, the student predicts what should happen. Second, the student attempts the problem unaided. Third, AI offers a hint, questions an assumption, presents an alternative representation or constructs a counterexample—without immediately supplying the answer. Fourth, the result is checked through substitution, limiting cases, dimensional analysis, numerical testing or formal proof. Fifth, the student reconstructs the argument in their own words and, where appropriate, by hand.

This is an AI sandwich: human effort before AI, critical interaction with AI, and human synthesis afterwards.

Teachers therefore cease to be mere transmitters of worked examples. They become designers of mathematical encounters, diagnosticians of misconceptions and guardians of epistemic standards. Instead of asking only whether the student obtained the answer, they ask whether the student can explain the method, identify the weakest step, test a boundary case, distinguish an exact result from an approximation, and justify the conclusion.

Assessment should evolve accordingly. Students can critique an AI-generated solution, locate a deliberately inserted error, compare methods, defend their assumptions orally, annotate a proof or maintain a handwritten reasoning journal. The trace of thought becomes more important than the final answer.

My three habits fit mathematics particularly well. Ask becomes the habit of forming a precise mathematical question. Speak becomes the ability to articulate a chain of reasoning and hear where it breaks. Write becomes the disciplined conversion of intuition into symbols, definitions and proof. AI can accompany all three, but it cannot assume responsibility for any of them.

The real danger is not that AI will make students weak at mathematics. It is that institutions will continue teaching mathematics as the production of answers when machines have become excellent answer-producing partners. The opportunity is to restore mathematics to its deeper purpose: modelling reality, detecting structure, reasoning under uncertainty and learning to recognise when one is wrong.

The classroom board will not disappear. Nor will the notebook. They will stand beside the bot. The university’s task is to ensure that the machine supplies speed and range while the human being retains curiosity, judgement and the courage to ask:

“Is this merely a convincing answer—or is it mathematically true?”

That question stayed with me as I made my way home. In my mind’s eye, Dr. Reza’s infectious smile returned, seeming to carry the simplest possible reply:

“It can be both.”

My blog, Solidified Air, received an unexpectedly enthusiastic response. Readers remarked that it had drawn attention to something that everyone sees every day but very few consciously notice. Air surrounds us so completely that we almost forget it exists. Yet compressed air becomes steel-cutting power, lifts aircraft into the sky, drives industries, and sustains every breath we take.

The arrival of the first monsoon showers each year evokes a similar feeling. We celebrate the rain and welcome the relief from summer’s relentless heat. Yet very few of us pause to ask an astonishing scientific question. Every year, billions of tonnes of water leave the oceans, travel thousands of kilometres as clouds, and finally descend upon the Indian subcontinent. Why does that enormous mass of water not simply fall back into the sea from which it arose? Why does it remain suspended in the sky throughout its long journey? And what finally persuades it to release itself over land – from Kerala to the Gangetic plains?

The word monsoon itself tells a fascinating story. Derived from the Arabic word mausim, meaning ‘season’, it later came to signify the seasonal reversal of winds observed by Arab sailors navigating the Indian Ocean. For centuries, these predictable changes in wind direction determined the rhythm of maritime trade between Arabia, East Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Long before satellites or weather models existed, navigators understood that the winds themselves possessed a seasonal memory.

Every summer, the Indian subcontinent undergoes one of the most intense seasonal land-heating events anywhere on Earth. Land responds to solar heating far more rapidly than the oceans. While the vast Indian Ocean warms only gradually because water has an exceptionally high heat capacity, the Indian landmass heats quickly under the tropical sun. During May and June, temperatures across northwestern India and adjoining regions frequently exceed 45°C.

As the land becomes intensely hot, the air above it warms as well. Warm air expands, becomes less dense, and rises, creating a broad region of relatively low atmospheric pressure across much of the subcontinent. Nature abhors imbalance. Air naturally moves from regions of higher pressure to regions of lower pressure in an attempt to restore equilibrium.

South of the equator, over the southern Indian Ocean, relatively cooler and denser air occupies a region of higher pressure. This air begins its long journey northwards towards the low-pressure system over India. Because the Earth rotates continuously, the moving air does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it is deflected by the Coriolis effect. After crossing the Equator into the Northern Hemisphere, the winds are deflected to the right, causing them to curve and eventually approach the Indian subcontinent as the moisture-laden south-westerly winds that define the Indian summer monsoon.

The scale of this transport is almost beyond imagination. Every day during the peak monsoon season, atmospheric rivers carry quantities of water comparable to the discharge of many of the world’s largest rivers combined. Yet almost all this water remains suspended high above the ocean without falling back into it. This is where the real wonder begins.

The clouds that eventually darken the skies over Kerala, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, or Delhi are not bags filled with water waiting to burst. Nor are they simply floating masses of liquid water. They are extraordinarily delicate physical systems in which microscopic droplets, ice crystals, water vapour, temperature, pressure and atmospheric motion exist in a state of dynamic balance. Each cloud is a masterpiece of fluid physics.

The first misconception we must set aside is that clouds are collections of large water droplets floating through the sky. If that were true, every cloud would empty itself almost immediately under the pull of gravity.

Instead, a cloud is an astonishingly delicate suspension of unimaginably tiny droplets of water, each typically only about 10 to 20 micrometres in diameter. To appreciate how small that is, consider a human hair. A single strand of hair is roughly 70 micrometres thick. Most cloud droplets are, therefore, only about one-fifth to one-sixth the diameter of a human hair. Millions of them could comfortably fit inside a teaspoon.

Because each droplet is so extraordinarily small, gravity has surprisingly little influence upon it. The downward pull of gravity exists, of course, but the droplet is so light that the resistance offered by the surrounding air almost completely balances its weight. Instead of falling like raindrops, these microscopic droplets behave more like tiny specks of dust floating in a sunbeam. The slightest upward movement of air is sufficient to keep them suspended.

This is the first secret behind the long journey of clouds. They are not carrying rivers through the sky. They are carrying an invisible multitude of microscopic droplets so small that the atmosphere itself can support them. But where do these droplets come from?

Every droplet needs a tiny foundation upon which to form. The atmosphere is never perfectly clean. Floating everywhere are microscopic particles of sea salt, desert dust, pollen grains, industrial aerosols, and so on. These minute particles, known as condensation nuclei, provide the tiny surfaces on which water vapour condenses, allowing droplets to form. They serve as nature’s scaffolding for billions of cloud droplets. But if clouds contain such enormous quantities of water, why do they not gradually become heavier until gravity inevitably wins?

The atmosphere is remarkable for its dynamism. A cloud is an ever-changing physical system. Every second, billions of droplets are formed while billions of others disappear. Water molecules continuously pass between the vapour and liquid states. The cloud that appears unchanged to our eyes is, in reality, undergoing ceaseless renewal.

The journey from the Arabian Sea to Hyderabad, or from the Bay of Bengal to the Himalayas, is, therefore, not undertaken by a fixed collection of water droplets. The cloud is continually rebuilding itself as it travels. The cloud survives because the overall balance remains remarkably stable. This delicate equilibrium can persist for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres. Only when the droplets begin to grow beyond their microscopic size does gravity slowly reclaim its authority.

However, one question still remains: why does so much of this rain fall only after the clouds reach India?

Stretching like a giant wall roughly parallel to India’s western coast stand the Western Ghats. Moist air approaching these mountains has only one option—it must climb. As the air is forced upwards, it expands and cools rapidly. Condensation accelerates. Droplets grow. Clouds thicken. Rain begins.

But the story does not end there. After shedding much of their moisture on the windward slopes, the monsoon winds continue their journey across the Indian peninsula. Here, the great mountain systems of central India—the Satpura and Vindhya ranges, together with the Maikal Hills and the hills of Odisha—act not only as barriers but also as guides and sculptors of the monsoon. Each encounter with rising terrain cools the air anew, triggering fresh condensation and another burst of rainfall. Finally, the Himalayas prevent moist tropical air from escaping into Central Asia and force the remaining moisture to rise, cool, condense, and fall over northern India.

India’s rainfall is a magnificent collaboration between the seas, the winds, and the mountains. The seas, warmed by the Sun’s energy, continuously supply vast quantities of water through evaporation. The monsoon winds carry this invisible water vapour across the subcontinent. When these moisture-laden winds encounter mountain ranges, they are forced to rise, cool, and condense, producing rain. This remarkable partnership gives rise to some of the wettest places on Earth, including Mawsynram and Cherrapunji in the Khasi Hills, while equally nourishing the forests of the Western Ghats, the tea gardens of Agumbe, and countless rivers, fields and villages across the country. What an extraordinary interplay of the seas, the winds, and the mountains! The more we understand, the more extraordinary the ordinary becomes.

There is a small seabird that weighs scarcely more than a hundred grams, yet every year it performs the longest migration known in the animal kingdom. The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) leaves its breeding grounds in the Arctic and flies to the Antarctic from August to November, where summer awaits, before returning north during March to May to welcome another Arctic summer. In a single year, it may travel over 70,000 kilometres. Over its lifetime, it can cover more than two million kilometres—equivalent to several journeys between the Earth and the Moon. No living creature spends more of its life in pursuit of light and warmth.

Its achievement is remarkable, not merely because of the distance it covers but because of its extraordinary precision. Without maps, satellites or navigational instruments, the Arctic tern reads the Earth’s magnetic field, the position of the Sun and stars, the direction of the winds and the rhythm of the oceans, returning almost unfailingly to the same breeding grounds year after year. Though tiny in stature, it is one of nature’s supreme navigators.

Naturalists often marvel at the tern’s endurance, but I find myself equally moved by its purpose. It does not migrate for adventure. It migrates because life itself demands movement. It follows an invisible compass refined over millions of years. It teaches us that constancy and movement are not opposites. One may travel endlessly and yet never lose one’s direction.

Until recently, I did not know that this extraordinary bird would find a place in my own life.

A few days ago, Squadron Leader Mradul Dixit and my niece, Sagarika, came to visit me before leaving Hyderabad for their next posting at Yelahanka in Bengaluru. They had arrived in Hyderabad three years earlier from Guwahati, where they had begun their married life. During those years, they were blessed with a daughter, Shambhavi, who has brought new joy to the family. Like every Air Force family, they now prepare to build another home in another city, carrying memories with them and creating new ones wherever duty calls.

My association with Mradul, however, began much earlier. I first met him when our families were exploring the possibility of his marriage to Sagarika. At the time, he was undergoing training at the Air Force Academy at Dundigal, near Hyderabad. For every aspiring military aviator, Dundigal is more than an institution. It is where young men and women are transformed into officers. Flying is taught there, certainly, but so too are discipline, responsibility, calm judgement and the quiet confidence that comes from mastering both oneself and one’s machine.

From the beginning, I found Mradul to possess that understated assurance which military training often imparts. There is little display, yet there is unmistakable strength.

Mradul hails from Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh, once the summer capital of the illustrious Scindia rulers of Gwalior. When we travelled there for the wedding, I found myself drawn not merely to the ceremonies but also to the place’s history. The magnificent Chhatris of the Scindias stand amidst serene gardens, their marble domes reflecting the elegance of a bygone era. They are monuments not only to royalty but also to memory itself.

What intrigued me most was one particular detail. The Scindia royal insignia features two intertwined serpents. Indian civilisation rarely chooses symbols casually. The serpent has long represented vigilance, renewal, wisdom and continuity. A pair of serpents suggests balance and the perpetual regeneration of life. Standing before those marble memorials, I felt that the emblem carried a quiet lesson: institutions endure not because they resist change, but because they renew themselves while remaining faithful to their inner character.

That lesson seemed strangely appropriate for military life.

Mradul flies the Avro HS 748, an aircraft that has served the Indian Air Force with quiet distinction for decades. Designed in Britain and manufactured in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the Avro has seldom enjoyed the glamour associated with fighter aircraft. Yet it has carried troops, supplies, medicines, equipment and hope to remote corners of the nation, often operating from airfields where larger aircraft cannot land. Its contribution has been measured less by spectacle than by reliability. It reminds us that nations are sustained not only by heroic moments but also by dependable service carried out every day without fanfare.

Their next destination, Yelahanka, is itself part of India’s aviation heritage. One of the oldest Air Force stations in the country and the venue for Aero India, it has witnessed generations of pilots taking to the skies in the service of the nation. For an aviator, every posting becomes another point on an invisible map drawn not by geography alone but by duty.

As they prepared to leave, Mradul did something unexpected. He did not simply hand me a small box. He opened it, took out a tiny silver brooch shaped like a bird, stepped closer and gently fastened it onto the pocket of my jacket. For a brief moment, I remained still while he carefully adjusted it until it sat perfectly in place.

It was such a simple gesture, yet it carried an unexpected tenderness. It reminded me of the old military tradition of pinning insignia upon a uniform—not as an ornament but as a mark of trust, affection and shared values. The brooch was no longer an object. It had become part of the occasion itself.

The bird was an Arctic tern. I could think of no bird more fitting to symbolise the life of an Air Force officer.

Like the Arctic tern, a pilot spends his life following invisible pathways across immense skies. He trusts training, instruments and judgement just as the bird trusts the Earth’s magnetic field and the heavens above it. He leaves home repeatedly, not because he wishes to wander, but because service demands movement. One posting follows another. Guwahati yields to Hyderabad. Hyderabad gives way to Yelahanka. Tomorrow, another city, another runway, another horizon will appear.

Yet through all these journeys, something remains unchanged.

The compass within.

The Arctic tern does not undertake its astonishing migration for conquest or adventure. Every flight serves the larger purpose of life itself. So too with military aviation. Every sortie serves something beyond the individual pilot—whether carrying supplies to distant frontiers, evacuating the injured, delivering relief after natural disasters or quietly sustaining the logistical lifelines upon which national security depends.

The bird and the pilot are united not by wings alone but by purpose. As I stood before my bookshelves while Mradul pinned the little tern to my jacket, I realised that the gift itself was secondary. What he had really given me was an idea.

The Arctic tern teaches that home is not always a place marked on a map. Sometimes, home is the direction in which one’s inner compass continues to point. Destinations may change—from Dundigal to Guwahati, from Hyderabad to Yelahanka, and onward to places yet unknown—but the journey remains coherent because duty gives it meaning.

When I look now at the little silver tern resting on my jacket, I no longer see merely a bird. I see a young Air Force officer setting out once again towards another horizon.

And I silently wish that, like the Arctic tern itself, he may always find favourable winds, clear skies and, wherever duty may take him, the certainty of finding his way home.

I have read Sri Aurobindo for many years, and my spiritual framework has been deeply shaped by his intellectual spirituality. From The Secret of the Veda to Savitri and The Life Divine, he produced perhaps the most profound exposition of Indian philosophical thought in the English language. Therefore, when I recently read Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, accompanied by R. J. Hollingdale’s masterly introduction, I found Sri Aurobindo resonating in the background of my reflections.

Both Nietzsche and Sri Aurobindo were dissatisfied with ordinary humanity – the ‘business as usual’ of the world. Neither regarded man as a ‘finished’ product – established in health and firm in mind. Both saw human life as a transition towards something greater and saw ‘seeking’ as a movement beyond complacency and conformity. It is, therefore, tempting to equate Nietzsche’s concept of Übermensch, or Superman, with Sri Aurobindo’s ideal of Supramental Being. Yet the resemblance is more apparent than real, for beneath it lie profoundly different understandings of human nature, consciousness, and the ultimate direction of evolution.

For Nietzsche, the Superman emerges after the ‘death of the idea of God’. Human beings can no longer rely on inherited moralities, the idea of a divine authority, or notions of cosmic guarantees – about justice, rationality, or even certainty. Nietzsche is fundamentally existential. Through courage, creativity, self-mastery, and the exercise of what he called the ‘will to power’, man rises beyond himself. His famous declaration is unequivocal: “Man is something that shall be overcome.” 

Sri Aurobindo begins from an entirely different premise. Reality, for him, is fundamentally divine. Evolution is neither accidental nor merely biological; it is the progressive unfolding of consciousness through matter, life and mind towards higher forms of awareness. Humanity is not the culmination of this process but an intermediate stage in a greater evolutionary ascent. The Supramental Being is the manifestation of a higher consciousness transforming human nature itself. Dissolution of the ego happens as a collateral development. 

What is striking, though, is that both philosophers – one Western and the other Eastern – reject passive conformity as the natural way of a human life. Nietzsche criticises herd mentality; Sri Aurobindo critiques a dulled consciousness. But thereafter, Nietzsche celebrates the highest possibilities of individual selfhood around the idea of ‘I-ness’, whereas Sri Aurobindo seeks its transformation through a consciousness beyond the ego. One might say that Nietzsche reaches an extraordinarily elevated expression of the embodied spirit—heroic, creative, fearless and life-affirming. Yet Sri Aurobindo envisages a still deeper possibility. His Supramental Being is an individuality that becomes transparent to a universal reality.

Nietzsche would likely reject such a formulation because he distrusted metaphysical and spiritual claims. Sri Aurobindo, by contrast, might regard Nietzsche’s Superman as an important yet incomplete stage—an awakening of strength without the final illumination of consciousness. Thus, while both reject the adequacy of ordinary humanity, they differ radically on what lies beyond it. Nietzsche points towards a higher human being; Sri Aurobindo towards a supramental mode of consciousness.

A useful metaphor is that of a great mountain rising before humanity.

On the western slope stands Nietzsche’s climber. He ascends by shedding dependency, inherited beliefs, resentment, fear and weakness. The ascent demands courage and self-overcoming. His declaration is, “I shall become what I am.”

On the eastern slope stands Aurobindo’s climber. He ascends through the purification of desire, the expansion of awareness, and the discovery of the divine reality concealed within. His declaration is: “I shall discover who I truly am.”

The routes appear different because the destinations are different. Nietzsche distrusts transcendence, fearing that it may become an escape from life. Sri Aurobindo embraces transcendence because he sees it as life’s fulfilment. Nietzsche exalts individuality; Sri Aurobindo seeks universality. Nietzsche’s hero stands alone; Aurobindo’s yogi becomes one with all.

Yet both reject mediocrity and insist that human life contains unrealised possibilities.

Looking to the Bhagavad Gita for an answer is rewarding. Shri Krishna first urges Arjuna to fulfil his duty as a warrior by fighting without shrinking from battle—an exhortation to wholehearted engagement in one’s role that Nietzsche might have admired. Shri Krishna then asks him to surrender the ego and become an instrument of a higher consciousness—a theme Sri Aurobindo develops with extraordinary depth.

In this sense, the Gita appears as a bridge between Nietzsche and Sri Aurobindo: first become fully human, then discover what lies beyond humanity. Yet this is not merely an abstract philosophical debate. It speaks directly to the predicament of our age. Why should I write this and expect you to read it? Because I believe it addresses the deepest philosophical questions of the modern age. Despite their education and affluence, many young people experience midlife loss-of-meaning crises. Many find solace in addictions; some merely dabble in them, while the rest suffer profound agony.

Nietzsche feared that appeals to the Absolute, the Universal, or the Divine often diminished the individual. History had shown him religions, ideologies and collective moralities demanding that exceptional individuals sacrifice themselves for abstractions. His response was a cry of rebellion: protect the individual flame; do not let it be swallowed by the blaze of the collective. For Nietzsche, the purpose of human development is to produce singular peaks—Beethoven, Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare. Humanity justifies itself through the creation of greatness.

Sri Aurobindo begins from the opposite premise. Individuality is precious, but what we ordinarily call individuality is only a provisional form. The ego is not the true Self; it is merely a temporary scaffolding. The genuine individual does not disappear in higher consciousness but becomes more fully itself. The drop does not vanish upon reaching the ocean; it discovers that it was never merely a drop. In much of Indian philosophy, liberation is not annihilation but expansion. The fear of dissolution arises because the ego mistakes itself for the whole person.

Nietzsche climbs until every support falls away and he stands upon a magnificent ridge overlooking the plains of conformity. The more I reflect upon Nietzsche’s writings, the more I see him as the great physician of a civilisation weakened by guilt, dependency and inherited certainties. He teaches humanity to stand upright. He strips away comforting illusions and demands courage. But his ‘individual’ is prone to fall into the abyss of despair. 

Sri Aurobindo begins where Nietzsche leaves off. Once man has learned to stand upright, he asks a further question: Is strength the destination, or merely the preparation? Nietzsche teaches freedom from servility, and Sri Aurobindo teaches freedom from limitation itself. Their differences lie in what they believe evolution is moving towards. Nietzsche’s horizon is greatness. Sri Aurobindo’s horizon is consciousness. The Gita’s horizon is wisdom in action.

What strikes me most is their shared conviction that humanity is not a finished product but a transitional being. The Upanishadic sages, the Bhagavad Gita, Nietzsche, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, and even modern evolutionary thinkers all reject the notion that present-day humanity represents the final chapter of existence. Each, in a different language, points towards growth, self-transcendence, and the unfolding of higher possibilities within human life. Even contemporary thinkers such as David Deutsch see the expansion of knowledge as the driving force behind human progress and evolution.

Perhaps that is why these conversations remain alive across the centuries. Each captures something essential about the human journey. Humanity needs Nietzsche’s courage and Sri Aurobindo’s vision. 

Perhaps my mentor, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, sensed this synthesis intuitively. He constantly urged young people to cultivate courage: “the courage to think differently, the courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, to discover the impossible, to combat problems and succeed.” For him, courage was not merely a personal virtue but the engine of human advancement.

Yet the human task is not simply to be courageous, nor merely to be wise, but to hold both qualities in creative tension. Courage enables us to face the world; wisdom helps us understand it; while vision gives direction to the journey. When any one of these stands alone, something essential is lost. As the years pass, I find that the most interesting question is no longer, “Who was right?” but rather, “What did each one see from the height he reached?” That question allows us to view philosophical traditions not as competing dogmas but as different windows onto a reality larger than any single system can fully contain.

The second edition of the International Conference on AI in Healthcare was held at Yashoda Hospital in Hyderabad on 13-14 June 2026. Robotic cancer surgeon Dr. Sunkavalli Chinnababu led the event, which attracted 2,000 delegates, 375+ speakers, policymakers, innovators, healthcare leaders and media partners across six parallel halls. Covering precision medicine, AI in radiology and pathology, innovation, discovery, policy, and startup challenges, the conference showcased the culture of a technologically enthusiastic society. 

The 45-minute panel discussion, Peering Into the Future: The Autonomous Hospital AI Era, as the final session, proved to be the conference’s crowning event. The panel brought together a distinguished group of experts: Dr. Mona Duggal, Director, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi; Dr. Amrut Kadam, Professor and Head of Radiation Oncology, Victoria Hospital, Bengaluru; Dr. H. Narendra, Professor and Head of Surgical Oncology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), Tirupati; and Dr. Bhaskar Rajakumar, CEO of Charaka MedTech. I was invited to moderate and lead the discussion.

In my opening remarks, I invoked what I called the Empire Analogy. Throughout history, empires have swept over kingdoms and societies. The defeated often adopted the language, institutions and knowledge systems of the new order. India under British rule is one example. Over time, Indians mastered the English language, absorbed Western education, and participated in the institutions of the Empire so fully that a person of Indian origin, Rishi Sunak, eventually became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving for nearly twenty months before his party’s electoral defeat in 2024.

The analogy was intended neither as praise nor as criticism, but as a reminder that transformative systems cannot be ignored. Artificial Intelligence is emerging as a new global force—an empire of knowledge, computation and data. Nations that merely resist it may be left behind; nations that understand it, internalise it, and adapt it to their own strengths can use it as a powerful instrument of growth and leadership. India must, therefore, learn to engage with AI not as a passive consumer, but as an active participant and creator.

The metaphor lightened the atmosphere and encouraged the panellists, all highly accomplished professionals, to speak with candour. The discussion soon converged on the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), which many regarded as the first serious step towards creating a digital health infrastructure for India. ABHA provides individuals with a unique digital health identifier, enabling them to link and manage their medical records across participating hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and other healthcare providers. Just as UPI created a common digital infrastructure for financial transactions, ABHA has the potential to become a foundational layer for the secure exchange of healthcare data, treatment histories, insurance-related information, and continuity of care.

The second major concern was the quality of healthcare data itself. The panel noted that India suffers not from a scarcity of data but from an abundance of fragmented, inconsistent and poorly curated data. Information collected in screening camps without recording the type of equipment used, calibration standards, operator competency, or measurement protocols often has limited scientific value. Worse, such data can produce misleading conclusions, such as proclaiming a city to be a ‘diabetes capital’ based on non-standardised surveys, estimating hypertension prevalence using inconsistent measurement techniques, or assessing oral and cervical cancers through purely visual examination without rigorous diagnostic confirmation. Artificial intelligence can only be as reliable as the data on which it is trained. Poor data creates poor intelligence.

The discussion then turned to the idea of the autonomous hospital itself—a hospital where AI manages and optimises many clinical, operational and administrative processes in real time, augmenting rather than replacing human professionals. Here, the panel was both optimistic and cautious. Three lessons and a cautionary point emerged.

The first lesson is about architecture. In mission-critical aerospace and defence systems, autonomy is never treated as magic. It is painstakingly built on redundancy, graceful degradation, fail-safe modes, continuous telemetry, rigorous verification protocols, and clear chains of accountability. Autonomous hospitals must be designed in the same spirit. Every AI recommendation must be explainable and traceable: what data entered the system, what inference was drawn, what action was suggested, what degree of uncertainty existed, and at what point human intervention became mandatory. Trust cannot be demanded; it must be engineered.

The second lesson is real-time situational awareness. In aerospace systems, sensor fusion is fundamental because no single sensor is trusted blindly. Multiple streams of information are continuously integrated to produce an accurate understanding of reality. Healthcare requires a similar approach. AI must synthesise vital signs, laboratory results, imaging studies, medication histories, nursing observations, bedside device data and clinical context. A single abnormal reading should not trigger blind action; the system must recognise patterns, trends, trajectories and risk profiles.

Nursing observation is an equally important sensor in this ecosystem. Experienced nurses often detect subtle deterioration in a patient’s condition before it becomes visible in laboratory reports or monitoring systems. Their judgment is built upon continuous observation, intuition developed through experience, and familiarity with the patient. Yet the indispensable contribution of nursing vigilance to patient safety remains underappreciated in many discussions on healthcare transformation. Any vision of autonomous hospitals that overlooks nurses is fundamentally incomplete.

The third lesson is independent auditability. In defence systems, telemetry is not ornamental; it is the memory of the mission. Every decision, event, anomaly, and response is recorded for later analysis. Hospitals require a comparable telemetry architecture—not only for clinical safety but also for ethical governance. AI can help create transparent and auditable trails that show why tests were ordered, which medications were prescribed, which consumables were used, whether treatment protocols were followed, and whether billing accurately reflected the care delivered. Such transparency protects patients, doctors, nurses, administrators, insurers and healthcare institutions alike.

However, the panel also issued a point of caution. AI must not become another instrument for accelerating the commercialisation of healthcare. Modern hospitals operate under increasing pressures from investors, expensive technologies, branded consumables, diagnostics-driven revenue models and expectations of financial returns. In such an environment, there is a risk that nurses and paramedics may be viewed merely as cost variables and patients as revenue events. Healthcare is fundamentally different from manufacturing or retail. Its purpose is not production but healing. Patients are not products, prototypes, or transactions; they are human beings whose dignity, trust, vulnerability and well-being must remain at the centre of every clinical decision. AI should strengthen this human-centred mission, not undermine it.

The real question, therefore, is not whether hospitals can become autonomous. The real question is: autonomous for what purpose? If autonomy simply means faster billing, higher throughput, more diagnostic testing, and greater revenue generation, it will erode trust. If autonomy delivers safer care, fewer errors, greater transparency in decision-making, reduced administrative burdens, fairer audits, earlier interventions and better patient outcomes, then AI can become a transformative force in healthcare—one in which treatments are transparent and transactions fair, accountable and traceable. 

The panel concluded with a clear consensus that the truly autonomous hospital remains at least five years away, and perhaps considerably longer in many settings. Automation should not be confused with artificial intelligence. Digitising a workflow is not the same as creating an intelligent system. Genuine AI depends on high-quality, real-time data acquired without manual delays, validated through redundancy, analysed systematically, and refined through continuous feedback. Above all, AI must never be allowed to compromise compassion, accountability, professional judgement, or human dignity.

How then do we progress?

The first requirement is education. AI literacy must be integrated into the curricula of nurses, paramedics, administrators and medical students. AI should be taught not merely as a technology but as a clinical and managerial tool.

The second requirement is transparency. Billing systems, procurement practices, diagnostic recommendations and treatment pathways should become auditable through AI-enabled oversight.

The third requirement is the creation of a national health data architecture built around the fully digital ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) framework and the broader Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Just as UPI transformed digital payments by creating a common interoperable stack, India requires a healthcare ‘stack’ that enables secure, patient-consented exchange of health information across institutions. Such a platform could eventually support preventive healthcare, personalised medicine, clinical research, public health surveillance, and AI-assisted decision support at a national scale.

Only when these foundations are firmly in place can the autonomous hospital evolve from a technological aspiration into a trusted institution that unites the precision of machines with the compassion and wisdom of human caregivers. Until then, talk of fully autonomous hospitals remains an alluring vision—but visions unsupported by strong foundations are no more than castles built on sand.