have long been an admirer of V. S. Naipaul, whose writings—especially his celebrated Indian Trilogy: An Area of Darkness (1964), India: A Wounded Civilisation (1977), and India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990)—have deepened my understanding of India beyond the comforting simplifications of nationalism or ideology. Much of what circulates in the media is crafted to flatter pride, reinforce prejudices or sustain political narratives. Great literature, however, compels us to confront societies as they are: layered, wounded, contradictory and profoundly human.

When I began reading, rather late, Midnight’s Children, published in 1981, I carried with me the exacting standards shaped by a Nobel Laureate’s gaze upon India. Yet Salman Rushdie’s achievement astonished me in an entirely different way. His extraordinary ability to capture how ordinary men and women experience history—not as abstract events in textbooks, but as disruptions that enter kitchens, refugee camps, railway compartments, marketplaces, military barracks and crowded city lanes—left me mesmerised and deeply shaken.

It is through great novels that one often encounters the deepest reality of an age. Historians may record events, statistics, treaties and political transitions, but novelists illuminate how those transformations are lived by people. Victor Hugo revealed the moral and social undercurrents of post-revolutionary France through the suffering and redemption of ordinary lives in Les Misérables. Leo Tolstoy captured the vast emotional and philosophical landscape of Imperial Russia in War and Peace, where history moves not only through emperors and generals but also through families, doubts, fears and private longings. Charles Dickens exposed the human cost of industrial England—the child labour, urban misery, debtors’ prisons and the emotional loneliness hidden beneath the triumphalism of progress. In the same way, Rushdie’s novel allows us to feel the subcontinent from within: its chaos, absurdity, beauty, violence, resilience and tragic inheritances. Great fiction does not merely narrate events; it restores texture to history and reminds us that civilisation is ultimately experienced not in slogans or statecraft, but in the fragile interior worlds of human beings. 

Beneath the spectacle of history—its wars, revolutions, elections and ideological battles—there persists an older and more enduring pattern: the ordinary masses are repeatedly mobilised, sacrificed and rearranged by forces far larger than themselves. Whether one calls them Janata, the proletariat, the working class, the peasantry or simply the multitudes, they remain the human material upon which history is most violently enacted. Empires are defended by their blood, economies are sustained by their labour and political narratives are legitimised in their name. Yet the rewards of power rarely flow proportionately towards them. Those who command capital, weapons, institutions and information continue to shape the direction of societies, while the masses often inherit the consequences.

The other day, on our way back after an evening with Seshu Venkata, Chief of Wipro Intelligence and Location Head in Hyderabad, at his home, while sitting beside my son Amol in his car at a traffic junction, I noticed a lanky teenage boy slowly pushing an ice cream cart towards a nearby cinema hall. The evening show was about to end, and the boy was positioning himself for the brief rush that would follow when crowds spilt out onto the street. There was something quietly tragic about the scene: the effort with which he pushed the cart, the uncertainty of the sales ahead, and the fragile economics of an entire evening resting upon melting ice cream and passing appetites. Almost instinctively, I wondered aloud where he would keep the cart at night and what would happen to the unsold stock.

Amol smiled at my naïveté and gently corrected me. “The cart is not his,” he said. “Nor is the ice cream.” He explained that the boy was merely a daily-wage worker employed by a larger company. At the end of the day, the carts—numbering in hundreds—would be returned to the company yard, where they would be cleaned, recharged and readied for the following day’s trade. The boy owned nothing except his labour for the day. Somehow, that reality saddened me even more. The little romanticism I had unconsciously attached to the image of a struggling but independent vendor dissolved instantly. This was not entrepreneurship in any meaningful sense. It was dependency disguised as informal freedom.

Sensing my discomfort, Amol expanded the point with a clarity characteristic of his generation. “Why only the ice cream cart?” he said. “Look around. The auto-rickshaw driver often doesn’t own his vehicle. The fruit seller may be working on borrowed money. Even many shops you see are financed entirely through loans and hypothecation. The goods inside do not truly belong to them until the debt is cleared.” Then he added a sentence that stayed with me long after the traffic light turned green: “These people are not even cogs in the machine anymore. They are merely the lubricating oil.”

That remark captured, with unsettling precision, the condition of much of modern humanity. Earlier industrial metaphors at least imagined workers as “cogs” within a larger system—visible, functional components essential to the machine’s movement. But today, vast numbers of people exist in an even more precarious state: interchangeable, invisible and perpetually replaceable. They facilitate systems they neither control nor meaningfully benefit from. The delivery rider carrying food through midnight traffic, the warehouse worker directed by algorithmic schedules, the app-based driver monitored through ratings, the street vendor dependent upon digital payment platforms, the migrant labourer whose existence vanishes from policy discussions once a crisis fades—all inhabit structures of dependency increasingly mediated not only by capital, but by technology. 

This is perhaps the defining paradox of the modern age. Humanity has produced unprecedented wealth, technological sophistication and material abundance, yet insecurity has deepened for millions. Ownership itself is becoming increasingly concentrated at the top, while risk is pushed downward. The platforms, data,  logistics networks, financial systems and algorithms belong to distant corporations or institutional capital. The individual worker merely interfaces with them temporarily, often without protection, permanence or bargaining power. The language of freedom remains, but the architecture of dependence intensifies.

And this is where the anxieties evoked by great literature become inseparable from the realities of our century. In Midnight’s Children, ordinary people are repeatedly swept aside by political and historical forces beyond their comprehension. Today, history rolls forward through technological systems that are no less overwhelming simply because they appear efficient, convenient or invisible. The modern citizen may no longer fear only the visible tyrant—the dictator, the censor or the law enforcer. Increasingly, he confronts impersonal systems that shape opportunity, mobility, visibility and even thought itself through data and computation. 

The unsettling question is not whether technology is inherently evil. It is whether human beings possess sufficient ethical and democratic wisdom to prevent technological power from becoming tyrannical. Unlike older forms of domination, technological authority often arrives clothed in the guise of convenience. People surrender data for ease, privacy for connectivity, autonomy for efficiency and, eventually, perhaps even judgment itself for algorithmic guidance. The transition is gradual, almost imperceptible. One day, a man owns his tools; the next, the tools define the conditions of his survival.

This is why the image of the teenage boy pushing the ice cream cart lingered in my mind. He was not merely a poor vendor on an Indian street. He was a quiet symbol of the age to come: labour without ownership, effort without security, movement without destination and existence suspended within systems too vast to see clearly. In him, one glimpses the future anxieties of a civilisation where wealth, information and technological power accumulate upward, while ordinary human beings continue to bear the weight of history below.

There are moments when knowledge does not come from books or structured lectures, but from the quiet authority of lived experience. I have increasingly come to believe that the most important knowledge comes from listening—listening to people as they recount what they have built, what they have struggled against, and what they have learnt in the process. These narratives are never entirely free from bias; no human telling ever is. Yet, when spoken openly before an audience, they carry a certain irreducible truth. One cannot sustain a falsehood in full public view for long.

Perhaps that is why platforms like TED have become so relevant in our times. They are not merely stages for ideas; they are spaces where experience is distilled into insight. I have had the privilege of standing on such a stage myself—speaking on ‘Innovation is All about New Vision’ in 2019 at MVR College of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad, and later on ‘Connecting Human and Artificial Intelligence’ in 2024 at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. Each time, I came away with the same realisation: innovation is not an abstract construct. It is deeply human, shaped as much by intent as by intellect.

It was in this frame of mind that I attended a talk by Dr. B. Soma Raju on innovation in medicine. What unfolded was not merely a recounting of achievements but a journey into the very anatomy of innovation.

He spoke of a time in the mid-1990s when the idea of developing an indigenous coronary stent first took root—not as a technological ambition, but as a response to an ethical unease. The imported stents available at the time were prohibitively expensive, often costing more than the angioplasty procedure itself. For a vast majority of patients, the choice was stark: health or affordability, survival or surrender.

The challenge was immense. A coronary stent is not just a device; it is a silent companion to the human heart, required to endure its relentless rhythm within an oxygen-rich environment—without corroding, without failing. It demands a material that is both resilient and biocompatible—a rare balance.

At that time, I found myself drawn to this mission, entrusted with developing the required steel. Working alongside a metallurgical scientist and my seniors at Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL)—Dr. A. Venugopal Reddy and Dr. Koneru Bose. We navigated a path that was as much about science as it was about purpose. It was also a moment of personal transition. I chose to step away from DRDO, moving into the private sector with the conviction that innovation aimed at public good needed a different kind of ecosystem.

Three decades later, listening to Dr. Soma Raju narrate that journey with clarity and authenticity felt like returning to a story that time had paused, but never truly ended. He spoke of the stent, of the then-emerging balloon valvuloplasty procedure, of the courage to challenge the status quo, and of the subtle yet decisive role of political will. Beneath his words, one could sense the deeper currents of innovation—the interplay of dominant forces and quiet rebellions, the constant churning of the human mind striving to do better. The hall rose in unison, not merely in applause, but in acknowledgement of a journey that had touched something deeper in the collective conscience.

And yet, as I stepped out of the hall, my thoughts turned away from history towards the dilemmas of the present. What happens when innovation itself is captured?

Not captured in any dramatic sense, but gradually absorbed—by corporate priorities, by regulatory frameworks, by distribution systems, and ultimately by markets that determine what is worth building. When science aligns itself primarily with profitability, a subtle shift occurs. The question is no longer what is needed, but what will sell. Then who builds for the needy billion?

There was a time when Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam articulated a vision that sought to bridge this gap—precisely, the idea of civilian spinoffs from defence technology. It was a powerful model: technologies developed in the pursuit of national strength could be redirected towards societal well-being. It was not merely a transfer of technology; it was a transfer of intent. That bridge, today, seems washed off.

In its place stands a new ferry service—incubation centres, start-ups, venture capital, valuation cycles. It is energetic, ambitious, and, in many ways, necessary. But it is also shaped by a different logic. Innovation is nurtured, but within the boundaries of market viability. Success is celebrated when a start-up is acquired, scales, or exits. Failure, which is intrinsic to innovation, is quietly borne by individuals—often at the cost of their most creative years.

Those who align themselves with what may be called the ‘Big Machine’ are often seamlessly accommodated within its architecture—rewarded, amplified, and carried upward by its momentum. Those who remain outside it, however capable or accomplished, frequently find themselves navigating a quieter and more constrained terrain. This is rarely a reflection of individual inadequacy. It arises from a deeper structural asymmetry embedded within the ecosystem itself. And for a country like India, with its immense reservoir of talent and aspiration, such asymmetry cannot be viewed merely through the lens of economics or career mobility. It ultimately raises a larger ethical question about fairness, access and the nation’s responsibility towards its own innovators.

A billion people cannot be served by an innovation that is designed only for those who can pay. Nor can we afford to romanticise a past that cannot be recreated. The question, therefore, is not whether we choose between enterprise and public good. It is whether we can integrate the two.

We need pathways to ensure that public-funded research once again aligns with essential healthcare needs, with affordability not an afterthought but a design principle. We need to value innovations not merely for their market success, but for their societal impact. A low-cost device that reaches millions carries a significance that no valuation can fully capture.

We must also recognise that innovation does not end with invention. It must travel through manufacturing, through distribution, through systems that ensure it reaches those who need it most. Affordability is not an accident; it is engineered through intent, policy and persistence.

As we step further into an era shaped by artificial intelligence, another dimension emerges. Technology now has the capacity to learn not just from structured data, but from human experience itself. The narratives we share—the stories of patients, of doctors, of innovators—can become part of a larger intelligence system. In that sense, every lived experience is no longer just a memory; it is a data point in the making of future solutions.

As I reflect on that evening, on the journey from a metallurgical challenge in a laboratory to a larger question about the future of innovation, I am left with a simple, persistent thought. Innovation is not merely about changing the status quo. It is about choosing whose status quo we seek to change. And in that choice lies the answer to a question that will define our times: Who builds for the needy billion?

In that answer lives the spirit of Dr. Kalam, who saw beyond laboratories and launch pads into the lives of ordinary people, and reminded us that technology finds its highest purpose when it serves humanity. In that answer resonates the work of Dr. B. Soma Raju, who chose not the convenience of imports, but the courage of creation, and in doing so, expanded the reach of healing.

And in that answer rests a quiet blessing for the countless innovators who continue despite adversity; who persist without certainty, build without applause, who fail and rise again—not for valuation, but for value. May more such minds emerge, for it is they who will ultimately build not merely for markets, but for the aspirations of a billion people.

I continue here the narrative on the power of storytelling from my earlier blog, Technology, Post-Truth, and the Craft of Story. History, when reduced to dates and events, runs the risk of becoming distant—almost abstract. But when someone writes with moral clarity and an actor embodies a life with unsettling precision, the past steps forward and confronts us. In the case of Adolf Hitler, this confrontation is not merely intellectual; it is deeply human, even disturbing. Through the monumental scholarship of Ian Kershaw and the haunting portrayal by Anthony Hopkins in The Bunker, we are forced to encounter a paradox: how does a human being become an instrument of immense destruction?

Among historians, Ian Kershaw, through his landmark biographies, Hitler: Hubris 1889–1936 and Hitler: Nemesis 1936–1945, offered one of the most authoritative and nuanced examinations of this question. It is not merely a life story; it is an anatomy of power. Kershaw resists the temptation to see Hitler as a lone aberration—a monstrous exception—and instead situates him within a broader social and institutional framework. The famous Nazi phrase, ‘working towards the Führer’, captures a chilling dynamic: Hitler did not need to issue explicit orders for every atrocity. Instead, a system evolved in which subordinates anticipated his wishes and acted with increasing radicalism. Evil, in this telling, is not only imposed from above; it is also cultivated from below.

What makes Kershaw’s work so compelling is its refusal to simplify. Hitler emerges not as a caricature of villainy but as a man shaped by circumstances, resentments and opportunities. The young, failed artist in Vienna, the soldier in the trenches of the First World War, the orator who discovered the intoxicating power of mass rallies—each phase is rendered with careful attention. Yet Kershaw never loses sight of the moral gravity of his subject. The Holocaust, the war, the devastation of Europe—these are not treated as abstractions but as consequences of choices made within a system that normalised the unthinkable.

If Kershaw gives us the architecture of power, The Bunker gives us its final, claustrophobic collapse. In this film, Anthony Hopkins portrays Hitler not as a distant figure of propaganda, but as a man in decay—physically diminished, psychologically unravelling, yet still clinging to delusions of control. The setting itself—the underground bunker in Berlin during the last days of the Third Reich—is almost theatrical in its intensity. The world above is burning; inside, a shrinking circle of loyalists inhabits a reality increasingly detached from the truth.

Hopkins’s performance is remarkable for its restraint. He avoids the temptation to exaggerate. Instead, he presents a Hitler who is, by turns, petulant, paranoid and eerily ordinary. There are moments of quiet conversation, flashes of irritation and sudden eruptions of anger. The effect is unsettling precisely because it humanises without excusing. One sees not a mythical monster, but a man—fragile, fearful, and yet capable of commanding unimaginable destruction. One cannot help but feel a disturbing sympathy for a man caught in the web of his own making, moving inexorably towards a horrific end.

This is where the power of storytelling becomes evident. A historian like Kershaw reconstructs the past through documents, testimonies and analysis. An actor like Hopkins reconstructs it through gesture, voice and presence. Both, in their own ways, bridge the distance between then and now. They remind us that history is never detached from human experience; it emerges through lives, decisions, and moments that were once as vivid and immediate as our present reality.

And yet, this very humanisation raises a troubling question: if even someone like Hitler can be understood as a human being, what does that reveal about the human condition itself?

The instinctive response is to resist this idea. We prefer to see figures like Hitler as fundamentally different from ourselves—as embodiments of evil that seem removed from the accepted terrain of human behaviour. This distance provides a kind of moral comfort. But Kershaw’s analysis and Hopkins’s portrayal both challenge this comfort. They suggest that the capacity for destruction is not alien to humanity; it is a distortion of impulses that exist within it.

In Kershaw’s account, Hitler’s rise is inseparable from the conditions of his time: the humiliation of Germany after the First World War, economic instability, political fragmentation, and a widespread longing for order and national revival. These conditions did not create Hitler, but they enabled his message to resonate. They created a space in which his ideas could take root and grow. The lesson here is not that history repeats itself mechanically, but that certain patterns—fear, resentment, the search for simple answers—can make societies vulnerable.

In The Bunker, this vulnerability is seen in its final consequences. The men and women around Hitler continue to serve him even as the reality of defeat becomes undeniable. Some are driven by loyalty, others by fear, and still others by an inability to confront the collapse of the world they believed in. The film captures this psychological inertia—the difficulty of breaking away from a system, even when it is clearly failing.

Together, these works illuminate a deeper truth: large-scale evil is rarely the product of a single will. It emerges from an interplay of leadership, ideology and collective behaviour. It is sustained not only by those who initiate it, but also by those who enable it, justify it, or simply fail to resist it.

And yet, recognising this does not diminish responsibility. If history teaches anything, it is that the boundary between the ordinary and the catastrophic is more fragile. The transformation of a society does not occur overnight; it unfolds through a series of small steps, each of which may seem insignificant in isolation but becomes profound in accumulation.

This is why the work of historians and artists matters. They do more than recount events; they shape our understanding of them. They invite us to look beyond the surface, to ask difficult questions, and to confront uncomfortable truths. In bringing figures like Hitler to life—not to glorify, but to understand—they perform a vital function. They keep memory alive, not as a static record, but as a living inquiry.

The paradox is this: understanding is not the same as forgiving, and humanising is not the same as justifying. But if we refuse to understand, history turns into myth—and we may fail to recognise the same forces shaping our own world.

In this sense, the enduring value of Kershaw’s scholarship and Hopkins’s performance lies not only in what they reveal about the past but in what they ask of the present. They remind us that history is not something that happened once and is now over. It is a mirror—one that reflects both the heights and the depths of human possibility.

And perhaps the most sobering insight they offer is this: the line between good and evil runs, quietly and persistently, through the human condition itself—echoing the Bhagavad Gita’s reminder that दैवी सम्पद्विमोक्षायनिबन्धायासुरी मता (16.5): the divine qualities lead to liberation, the demonic to bondage, both residing within the same human frame. Blessed, then, are the writers and actors—for theirs is the rare art of holding up a mirror, and compelling us to see not only history as it was, but ourselves as we are.

Indian civilisation stretches back into prehistory, carrying within it one of humanity’s longest continuous memories. The Vedas stand among the earliest recorded repositories of knowledge, intuition, inquiry and metaphysical reflection. The spread of Indian culture across South-East Asia—visible in Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Prambanan and countless temple traditions—was not merely the result of conquest, but of a deeper civilisational radiance: trade, language, ritual, art, kingship and ideas travelling across seas and being accepted, adapted and naturalised by other societies.

Yet India has often suffered from a peculiar historical forgetfulness. Our civilisational memory is vast, but our public narration of it is fragmented. We remember invasions, but not always resistance. We remember defeat, but not continuity. Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammad Ghori are invoked repeatedly, but less attention is given to the long intervals between incursions, the resilience of local powers, and the fact that India was never a passive geography waiting to be conquered. Alexander’s retreat from the north-west, the presence of Greek envoys at Chandragupta Maurya’s court, the vast sweep of Mauryan power, the maritime reach of Indian influence, and later, the Maratha expansion from the north to the deep south—all deserve equal space in our national imagination.

The same is true of the Mughal period. Their rule was powerful but uneven, imperial but never total. They controlled courts, cities, armies and revenue systems, but India’s social and cultural life remained deeply plural, local and resilient. The inability of even long imperial rule to homogenise India’s religious and civilisational identity shows not merely resistance, but the depth of Indian society. Aurangzeb’s final years in the Deccan, far from Delhi, and his burial near Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad), symbolise the limits of imperial overreach. India was politically conquered many times, but rarely culturally subdued.

It was in this spirit that I spent a memorable afternoon with Wing Commander M.V.N. Sai, a distinguished Indian Air Force officer who retired after 24 years of service. He played an important role in the evolution of India’s Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), a critical air-defence network that integrates sensors, command nodes and weapon systems for real-time response. Considered a credible ‘think-tank’, his recent analyses have also highlighted the importance of IACCS in India’s network-centric air defence architecture.

Our conversation took place at Quorum in HITEC City, Hyderabad, graciously hosted by our mutual friend, Gopi Krishna Reddy. It was not merely a meeting; it was a reflection. We recalled how India fought wars, how it produced nearly a quarter of global GDP before colonial disruption, how Partition created two militarised flanks on India’s west and east, and how the British departure left behind not only borders but strategic constraints. Yet India, despite technology-denial regimes, geopolitical sanctions, and prolonged economic constraints, became both a nuclear and a missile power. Operation Sindoor, as described by official Indian sources, showcased the increasing importance of indigenous defence systems, layered air defence, electronic warfare and precision capabilities in modern conflict.

The central question before us was this: what kind of war is still ‘tenable’ in the twenty-first century?

Large conventional wars have not disappeared, as Ukraine’s prolonged resistance to Russian military power has demonstrated. But the texture of war has changed. It is no longer only about tanks crossing borders or aircraft dominating skies. It is about drones, satellites, cyber systems, energy grids, financial networks, ports, undersea cables, social media narratives and psychological endurance. The battlefield has expanded from land, sea and air into space, cyberspace, cognition and infrastructure.

The drone has changed military arithmetic. A cheap unmanned system can threaten an expensive platform. Even when claims of drones bringing down stealth aircraft must be treated carefully, the larger lesson is undeniable: asymmetry has returned with force. In fact, recent reports show F-35s being used to shoot down drones, raising questions about cost, sustainability and tactical efficiency. The issue is not that advanced aircraft have become useless; it is that superiority now depends on integration, speed, software, sensors, electronic warfare and layered defence.

This does not mean the end of military warfare; rather, it means the end of old-style military thinking. Militaries will still matter. Navies will still matter. Air power will still matter. But none can function effectively in operational isolation. The decisive force of the future will be the nation’s ability to integrate military strength with technological depth, industrial resilience, civil preparedness and strategic clarity.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis shows how fragile the world remains. The United States has recently warned shipping firms against paying Iran for transit through the Strait, while reports indicate ongoing negotiations and tensions over keeping this vital energy route open. A narrow maritime passage can affect oil prices, inflation, insurance, shipping, diplomacy and war planning across continents. This is exactly why sea lines of communication are no longer abstract naval concerns—they are the arteries of civilisation.

The most frightening dimension, however, lies in cyber warfare. What happens if a national power grid is paralysed? What if banking systems freeze, railway signalling collapses, airlines are grounded, hospitals lose digital access, or ports cannot process cargo? Such an attack may not kill immediately like a missile, but it can immobilise a nation. The next war may begin not with an explosion, but with silence: screens going blank, cities going dark, accounts becoming inaccessible, and command systems failing.

Therefore, India’s preparation must be on a civilisational scale. It must bring together the armed forces, engineers, scientists, cyber experts, aerospace entrepreneurs, maritime strategists, AI specialists, energy planners and young innovators. National security cannot remain confined to cantonments and ministries. It must become a whole-of-nation discipline.

The best solution is not merely more weapons, but deeper preparedness: indigenous technology, secure supply chains, hardened digital infrastructure, resilient power grids, cyber reserves, drone and counter-drone ecosystems, maritime aviation, space-based surveillance and rapid decision networks. Above all, India must recover confidence in its own historical continuity. A civilisation that has survived millennia must not think episodically. It must think in centuries.

The wars of the future will not be won merely on battlefields of land, sea, or air, but in the far more complex theatres of intelligence, technology, economy, information and national resolve. They will not be secured by anger—an emotion that exhausts itself—but by awareness: a clear understanding of history, strategy, vulnerabilities and emerging realities. Nations that survive and lead will be those capable of seeing the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. Memory remains essential, for a civilisation without historical consciousness becomes vulnerable to manipulation and repetition of past mistakes. Yet memory alone is insufficient unless transformed into preparedness—into strong institutions, scientific innovation, strategic industries, military capability, educational excellence and social cohesion.

The future belongs neither to those who merely imitate dominant powers nor to those trapped in nostalgia. Blind imitation breeds dependency; nostalgia without innovation breeds irrelevance. True sovereignty arises when a civilisation draws strength from its own intellectual and cultural foundations while simultaneously controlling the engines of contemporary power. Civilisational self-belief is, therefore, not arrogance, but confidence rooted in continuity—a recognition that a people secure in their identity can engage the future creatively rather than defensively. For India, this means uniting the philosophical depth of one of the world’s oldest civilisations with leadership in artificial intelligence, defence systems, energy security, biotechnology, cyber capability and economic resilience.

A nation that remembers its civilisational inheritance while commanding cutting-edge technology becomes far more than a reactive state—it becomes a decisive force in history. Such a society does not merely defend borders; it defends narratives, institutions, values and the capacity to define its own destiny. In this lies the ultimate lesson: the decisive victories of the coming century will belong to those nations that combine wisdom with innovation, heritage with scientific excellence, and strategic patience with bold execution. For in the end, the greatest power is neither conquest nor rhetoric, but the enduring ability of a civilisation to rise, adapt and lead with confidence in both its soul and its systems.

These days, I have found myself increasingly drawn to the quiet brilliance of Japanese fiction. My journey began with the deeply reflective novels of Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, whose works opened a gateway into a literary tradition where memory, loss and the unseen emotional architecture of life are rendered with extraordinary subtlety. From there, I immersed myself in the surreal yet profoundly human worlds of Haruki Murakami, reading nearly all his major works. Most recently, I turned to The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi, born in 1974, a writer whose delicate craftsmanship continues this remarkable Japanese literary sensibility.

Across these writers, one notices a common artistic thread: the ability to magnify seemingly ordinary moments into luminous meditations on existence. Small gestures, forgotten memories, fleeting encounters and personal griefs are transformed into profound philosophical reflections. Reading these works in English translation is a pleasure, but one cannot help imagining the exquisite linguistic precision and emotional cadence of the original Japanese prose.

The Lantern of Lost Memories unfolds through three distinct yet intricately interconnected stories, all centred around an ethereal photo studio perched upon a serene hill between life and the afterlife. This liminal place is managed by Hirasaka, a mysterious figure who receives a box of photographs every day from a courier named Yama. Each set of photographs, one from every day lived from birth to death, corresponds to the life of a person who will die that day and arrive at the studio soon.

Upon arrival, each deceased visitor is granted an extraordinary final gift: the opportunity to choose a single photograph from each year of their life to make a revolving lantern. More than that, Hirasaka possesses the unique ability to invisibly accompany them back to a chosen day from that year, allowing them to relive it and photograph it anew. Hirasaka then arranges these photographs in a slow, revolving lantern—an emotional illumination meant to gently guide souls into the afterlife.

Yet Hirasaka himself remains the novel’s most haunting enigma. He possesses no memory of his own human life, save for one solitary photograph of himself standing alone in a park—an image that serves as both anchor and void. Very subtly, but powerfully, we are told that even those entrusted with guiding others through memory and meaning may themselves remain lost in search of their own. The quest for identity, purpose and self-understanding is universal, extending even to those who illuminate the path for others—as seen in the lives of many gurus, philosophers and writers who ended their days in misery.

The first story introduces Hatsue, a 92-year-old woman who chooses to revisit her youth at age 23, when she worked as a nursery school teacher for the impoverished children of industrial labourers. Her return reveals not grand achievements, but the quiet dignity of compassion and service. Through Hatsue, the novel emphasises that a meaningful life is often built not through power or acclaim, but through tenderness, sacrifice and unnoticed goodness.

The second story shifts dramatically in tone, following a 47-year-old gangster-like, hefty man who arrives at the studio after being murdered. Initially appearing hardened and morally compromised, his journey backwards reveals hidden layers of kindness, particularly his role in protecting a vulnerable Vietnamese immigrant child from the cruelty of local bullies at school. In doing so, Hiiragi masterfully reveals humanity even in hardened souls.

The final and most emotionally resonant story centres on Mitsuru, a young girl who has suffered abuse. She is only temporarily dead but would return to the living world. During her visit, Hirasaka breaks the sacred code of non-interference by teaching her how to start a fire with focused sunlight and dried leaves—a small act of practical wisdom that ultimately saves her life later. This act of compassion comes at a great cost: as punishment, Hirasaka’s memories are permanently erased, leaving behind only a single photograph Mitsuru took of him, as mentioned earlier.

This climax elevates the novel from a meditation on memory into a profound reflection on selfless love and sacrifice. Hirasaka’s choice suggests that true meaning may not lie in preserving oneself, but in becoming a source of light for another’s continued life.

The novel concludes with Mitsuru growing into adolescence while Hirasaka and Yama quietly hope that she will not return to the studio until the farthest possible future—an understated but deeply moving blessing that she may live a long, full life.

Ultimately, The Lantern of Lost Memories offers readers a deeply humane and spiritually resonant message: life’s true significance lies not in grand accomplishments, but in the moments of kindness, courage and connection that leave an enduring imprint on human lives. Memory, in this novel, is not merely recollection—it is illumination. Our lives become lanterns, glowing through the love we gave, the wounds we healed, and the small acts of grace we offered. In that sense, every human life has the potential to become its own lantern—guiding others long after we are gone.

As I read, I could not help but ask myself: If I were to arrive at Hirasaka’s studio, which memory would I choose to relive? Without hesitation, I know my answer.

I would ask to return to a day in 1977, when I went with my siblings—my sister Seema and my brothers Varun and Salil—and my father to watch the film Hum Kisise Kum Naheen in Meerut. It was an evening show at Menka Cinema theatre. I had brought my first little salary home. During the film’s interval, I stepped out to buy a paan for my father—a first-of-its-kind gesture. It was a simple act by a son for the father who always provided whatever was needed, often without my asking and before the need had even risen.

Memory often preserves such moments with sacred precision. My father passed away soon after. And with his passing, something far larger than a life came to an end: we siblings never again sat together in a cinema hall as one complete family. My sister got married, and my brothers grew into adults with lives of their own. That ordinary evening became, without our knowing it, the closing frame of an entire era of our formative years.

If Hirasaka were to guide me back, I would not seek grand revelations or dramatic turning points. I would simply wish to stand again in that theatre lobby, holding that paan, seeing my father alive, hearing my siblings’ laughter, and experiencing again the unconscious security of a world still whole. Unfortunately, no photograph exists of all five of us, and I would love to take one with Hirasaka’s help.

Perhaps the deepest tragedy of life is that we seldom recognise its most precious moments while we are living them. In the end, The Lantern of Lost Memories leaves us with a haunting yet consoling truth: life is not measured solely by milestones, victories, or public achievements, but by those fragile, irreplaceable moments whose true value becomes visible only after time has taken them away. Perhaps that is why memory hurts. And perhaps that is also why it glows.

After finishing this blog, pause for a moment and imagine your own journey through time—capturing, in a single impossible photograph, one beautiful moment from your life that memory alone could never fully preserve.

I have had a long association with Wipro since the 1990s. I accompanied Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam to the Wipro campus in Bengaluru in 1999. We aimed to develop a mobile Cath Lab, as none existed in the country outside a few large cities. There, I had the opportunity to present to Azim Premji on the civilian spin-offs of defence technology. I titled the presentation ‘Web of Life’. However, the initiative did not move forward.

Years later, my son Aseem worked with Wipro in Germany, absorbing the global rhythms of an Indian enterprise that had learned to speak many technological languages. In another phase of my journey, I co-authored Innovate Locally to Win Globally, the memoir of Mr D. A. Prasanna, Founder and CEO of Wipro GE Healthcare. The book traces the origins of India’s med-tech revolution in the 1990s, which has since grown into a US$12 billion export ecosystem.

So, when an invitation came from Seshu Venkata, Chief of Wipro Intelligence and Location Head in Hyderabad, for a tête-à-tête, it was more than a courtesy call—it was a familiar echo from the past.

The Wipro Gopanpally campus is expansive—nearly 100,000 square metres of built space, interwoven with restaurants, cafeterias, fitness centres, and a library that speaks of both scale and aspiration. Four energy-efficient towers are dotted across a meticulously landscaped 38 acres, creating a setting that feels almost surreal.

Sheshu received me in his Spartan cabin on the 12th floor—no showpieces, no paraphernalia, none of the trappings that often accompany hierarchy. For someone overseeing a workforce of over 52,000, the absence of phones, secretaries, and guards felt almost radical to an Indian mind conditioned to equate authority with visible markers. And yet, what appeared as minimalism was, in fact, a deeper discipline. I was reminded of an earlier moment in San José, when John Chambers, the CEO of CISCO Systems,  hosted Dr Kalam in a similarly understated office. True scale, I have come to realise, does not need to announce itself.

In his fifties, Sheshu is a man of good health and pleasant manners, but one cannot miss a ‘no-nonsense firewall’ around his persona. He prefers to drive a Tata Safari—a deliberate choice in a world where he could afford any global brand. He commutes from his villa in Hill County, a home he acquired nearly two decades ago, long before the surrounding landscape transformed into today’s bustling technology corridor. His attire is simple, his food is home-cooked, and his rhythms are unadorned.

In his cabin, he demonstrated something far more telling than any artefact of success. On a wall-mounted screen, each of his immediate team members appeared—not in static profiles, but in motion—working in real time, assisted by AI agents that were already anticipating needs, offering insights, and intervening even before being explicitly asked. Each morning, when they arrive, their AI agent tells them that certain activities have already been completed since they left the previous evening. It was a glimpse into a living system—an organisation where intelligence had begun to flow, not as a command, but as a continuum.

Sheshu himself is a Wipro veteran in the truest sense—one who has grown with the institution. From managing Wipro’s flagship Nokia account in Finland for a decade to returning to Hyderabad and shaping it into a powerhouse that rivals even Bengaluru, his journey mirrors Wipro’s own evolution in Hyderabad. From a modest 300-seat facility, to 3,000 seats at Cyber Towers in 2000, to 30,000 in the Financial District, and now this sprawling campus—the growth is not just in numbers, but in confidence.

We spent about an hour—over tea, a simple piece of grilled toast, and a sachet of tomato ketchup that seemed almost symbolic of the times: minimal, functional, unpretentious.

With me was my long-time colleague S. G. Prasad, who pitched in where I lacked or strayed. Between us, we framed our conversation around three questions—questions that are now shaping not just the IT industry, but the very architecture of human work.

1. How will AI transform the IT sector?

AI will automate much of today’s IT work—from coding and testing to infrastructure management and parts of system design—transforming, not eliminating, the profession. As routine execution shifts to intelligent systems, IT roles will evolve towards systems thinking: framing problems, interpreting outputs, designing architectures, and aligning machine intelligence with human goals. The future professional will move from coder to orchestrator, from execution to supervision. This is not an extinction event, but a profound reconfiguration in which talent, adaptability, and contextual intelligence will matter more than routine technical labour.

In fact, productivity per engineer is likely to increase dramatically. Smaller teams will build larger systems. Start-ups will challenge incumbents with unprecedented velocity. Within enterprises, the distinction between ‘business’ and ‘IT’ will dissolve—because intelligence will be embedded across functions. Jobs will not disappear; new roles will come up and demand a higher level of thinking.

2. What is India’s position as regards AI?

India’s position in AI is both promising and precarious. It commands major advantages: vast engineering talent, deep large-scale IT expertise, cost-efficient innovation, and digital public infrastructure capable of deploying AI at population scale. These strengths position India to lead the Global South—if it avoids self-inflicted setbacks. Yet foundational AI, from large models to core algorithms and semiconductor ecosystems, remains concentrated among a few global powers. India’s true opportunity lies not in replicating these giants, but in mastering AI applications at scale.

India can lead in building domain-specific AI solutions—in healthcare diagnostics for rural populations, precision agriculture for small farmers, and multilingual education systems that bridge linguistic diversity. We have the advantage of complexity, and if harnessed correctly, that complexity can become our innovation engine. The future will not be decided by who builds the largest model; it will be shaped by who applies intelligence most meaningfully.

3. What can AI do to improve the lives of ordinary people?

This, to me, is the most important question. AI must move beyond enterprise efficiency and enter the domain of human dignity. Seshu himself appeared brimming with enthusiasm on this account.

Imagine a primary health centre where AI assists a doctor in diagnosing conditions early, reducing errors and expanding access. Imagine a farmer receiving real-time, localised advice on soil, weather, and crop health. Imagine a student in a remote village learning in her own language, guided by an adaptive system that understands her pace and potential. These are not distant possibilities; they are emerging realities. AI, when aligned with public purpose, can compress inequity. It can bring expertise to places where experts cannot physically be present. It can reduce the distance between knowledge and need. But this requires intent. Technology alone does not guarantee inclusion.

As the visit drew to a close, I was introduced to Sheshu’s twenty-strong Wings of Intelligence team. There was a quiet bonhomie among them, born of having worked together for over a decade—an ease that arose not from hierarchy, but from shared purpose. They did not speak of disruption; they embodied continuity. In many ways, they carried forward the spirit of Dr. Kalam’s Wings of Fire.

Leaving the campus, a simple thought stayed with me. The future of IT will not be written by those who chase technology as an end in itself, but by those who see it as a means to integrate systems, elevate human capability, and serve a larger purpose. The façade may evolve; the foundation must deepen. And I can already see that shift taking shape.