Two people played a crucial role in my professional life—Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, under whom I worked first from 1982 at the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and later as his pupil till he departed in 2015, and Dr B Soma Raju, Cardiologist, who I met in 1986 as a patient, then quit my government service to establish the Cardiac Research and Education (CARE) Foundation in 1997 and worked with him for over two decades. I received valuable insights from him, primarily through some of the rare books he gave me.

Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James Carse is a book he gave me recently. Published in 1987, it is considered a popular book and discussed extensively. A profound book, it offers a different perspective on life. The book is brief and written in simple and direct language. It opens with, “There are at least two kinds of games. One should be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played to win, an infinite game to continue the play. If a finite game is to be won by someone, it must come to a definite end. It will come to an end when someone has won.” (p. 1)

As you read the book, the idea becomes more apparent. The format is clear to both sides and those watching whenever a finite game is played—for example, a test match, a one-day international, and a T-20 in cricket. Then there is a football match, which is different. And so on. Even chess is a game, and so are cards. The match ends with one side winning and the other losing. But infinite games continue forever. Take, for example, a marriage, a teacher-pupil relationship, an industry, etc. Generation after generation plays these games, and the idea is not to win or lose but to keep playing. Whether or not we realise it, we are already playing both games. It helps to understand that we don’t go in for ‘win or lose’ in Infinite games and keep playing.

What is this world but an infinite game? There is a social game within which various other games are embedded, like the family game, community game, religion game, political game, and above all, the economic game. Resources must be harnessed and shifted across the globe, goods manufactured, food grown, and trained and able people are needed to do all these activities. So, children must be born, raised and employed. There must be masters, supervisors, sellers, buyers and middlemen. Then, there are the service providers—maids, cooks, barbers, entertainers—depending on who needs what. We are born into a game and live trying to adjust to what is happening rather than living joyously.

An example of a finite game that’s essential to the infinite game of maintaining a healthy life is making sure you walk for 30 minutes every day. An infinite game includes finite games like employee compensation and recognition of short-term performance targets to ensure employees understand their duties and how they contribute to the organisation’s success. A partnership based on mutual respect and duty is like a series of finite games: getting household tasks done daily, having a proper livelihood, and having no addictions.

In the 1980s, I was introduced to a larger world after coming to Hyderabad. There was no internet facility then, and one had to buy books from shops. There was hardly any spare cash, and I found the second-hand book market in the Abids area, held on the footpaths on Sunday when the main market was closed, to be the most heavenly place. I picked up a 1964 book, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, by Eric Berne, from there. It was a ‘bestseller’ in popular psychology (pop psychology), a book that simplifies the concepts and theories about human mental life and behaviour, supposedly based on psychology and widely considered credible and accepted by the populace.

Berne presents his idea of transactional analysis in the book’s first part as a framework for understanding social interactions. He suggests that people permanently inhabit three distinct selves—the child, the adult, and the parent—and keep shuffling between them. His main argument is that most interactions between adults are benign. When people engage in out-of-character roles like ‘Parent-and-Child’ or ‘Child-and-Adult’ in what are adult-to-adult dealings, they can lead to problematic interactions. How can a spouse be dealt with as a ‘baby’?

In the second part, we get a rundown of many ‘mind games’, wherein participants engage in predictable and structured ‘transactions’ based on their ill-suited roles. These exchanges may appear natural at first, but they are a cover for concealed agendas with predetermined results. “See What You Made Me Do”, “Why Don’t You”, “Yes, but” and “Ain’t It Awful?” are a few examples of the funny and informal expressions that describe the games in the book. The first person to return to their Adult ego-state is the ‘winner’ of these mental games.

Religion emerges as the most apparent infinite game. Its ultimate purpose is often the ongoing search for meaning, connection and understanding of the Divine. The practices, community involvement and personal growth associated with faith can foster a sense of continuity and exploration. Religions have evolved, responding to cultural changes and new interpretations. This dynamism is characteristic of infinite games, where the goal is to keep the play alive rather than adhering strictly to unchanging rules.

On the other hand, some aspects of religion can resemble finite games, such as dogmatic belief systems, rituals, or positions of authority that may create divisions or a sense of competition among followers. While not all elements of religion may perfectly align with the concept of an infinite game, many facets—particularly those focused on growth, love, and community—reflect an endless approach to life and spirituality. Ultimately, interpretation can vary based on individual experiences and beliefs.

“No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relation to others. Simultaneously, the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character… this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather, change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.” (p. 37)

Like games, people set personal and/or professional goals and work towards them. Life has its own rules and challenges, and, like a game, it requires strategies to navigate through them. Just as games often involve collaboration or competition with others, life requires social interactions and relationships. Games usually include learning from failures and successes, a principle that can be applied to personal development. We can approach life with the same strategies and mindset we use in gaming. Ultimately, viewing life as a game encourages us to embrace its challenges with curiosity, playfulness, and a focus on growth rather than just winning.

Certain words and phrases gain prominence at different times, and this is becoming a fashion in the Internet media world. “Deep State” is currently circulating about the mysterious powers that run the world. When Khoa Hoang, my Vietnamese–Australian friend and Chairman of Amphibian Aerospace Industries (AAI), visited me, we naturally discussed the geopolitical dynamics, how swiftly governments in Bangladesh and Syria were changed, and how Asia and Europe will be affected by government change in the United States next month.

Khoa explained that whatever word and term one uses, business interests have always run the world, and nothing will ever change this arrangement. Europe was a miserable place to live until the early second millennium. The Gaul (French), Lombard (Germans), Latins (Italians), Hispania (Spanish), Dutch and Norse (Scandinavian) people fought wars against each other until ships were invented. They tasted wealth by occupying territories of countries where people did not have guns. They initially looted diamonds, gold and ivory and brought in slaves to work for them.

After the Industrial Revolution, raw materials were needed, leading to large-scale colonisation. Using guns, Europeans became masters of the entire planet. They kept sending material back to their factories and later sold the mass-produced items back in the markets, killing indigenous enterprises. This business was hidden behind terms like Imperialism, Commonwealth, etc. After the Second World War ended in a “drawn match,” the world was divided into two blocs. Those who preferred to float independently were called the “third world.”

Then, around 1990, Germany first reunited, and then Soviet Russia collapsed. For a while, it looked as if the United States was the only power on the planet, but soon, its corporations, out of their greed for profits, evolved a new form of imperialism called “globalisation.” Without armies, they entered every country to take their resources—both material and people—and, in the name of intellectual property and tariffs, converted the world into a giant profit machine for the businesspeople.

China gained the maximum out of globalisation. It became the “factory of the world” and amassed enormous wealth by manufacturing “American and European products” for global markets. The Communist Party of China, perhaps the most powerful organisation in the modern world, invested this unprecedented wealth back into the United States. China captured rights over almost the entire African continent for material resources. However, attitudes changed when Americans and Europeans realised their good lives were fading. The economic slowdown since the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns forced a course correction.

To understand the geopolitics of the modern world and how it will unfold in the New Year 2025, a close look at history will give a clearer picture instead of indulging in the fanciful imagination of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Biotechnology. As technology matured, the definition of resources changed. What started with mining diamonds and gold, later oil, iron ore, copper and coal, became electronic materials such as silicon, lithium, tantalum and cobalt. With unique magnetic, optical and catalytic properties, rare earth elements—a group of 17 metals—elevate electronic device performance, functionality, and miniaturisation. China currently controls much of the global critical mineral marketplace. It is also rewriting the rules of the world economy.

Let us take a different look at the development of electric cars. The idea is to break free from European dominance and excellence in making internal combustion engines. So, if you can’t make good automobile engines, why not make a car that does not need an engine but runs on batteries? More significantly, China has already secured dominance over the material that would make the batteries that would run such vehicles. China will undo a century of European dominance over the automobile industry in this process. Even being a second mover has its benefits!

No one must make the mistake of ignoring the rise of China, which is as much a wounded civilisation as India is. Powerful countries like France, Russia, Japan, Britain, and Germany tried to control China by dividing it like the African continent and the infamous term “Cutting of the Chinese Melon” gained popularity. Japan extracted hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom, and European nations grabbed vast Chinese territories. Worse still, China was flooded with opium for profits by the British. The British grabbing of Hong Kong in 1841 was a thuggery of the most blatant type.

So, what next? The answer to this question leads to another question: Where are the resources? Russia holds the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the global total. The European economy can’t survive without the Russian gas supply, and for China, Russia is the next-door energy supplier. At the root of the Ukraine War is its potential as a significant global supplier of critical raw materials vital for high-tech sectors, aerospace, and green energy, competed for by Russia and Western European countries. India—the country with the most significant number of young people and a vibrant economy—will be the pivot on which the 21st–century world hinges. All economies will need the Indian market and Indian people.

Khoa shared an interesting concept that no single power on Earth can control the seven seas—the Arctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans. The future of humanity rests on how oceans are harnessed and kept free for the movement of goods. His mission of reviving the Albatross seaplanes is based on this premise. Khoa’s company is the Type Certificate holder for the Albatross family of aircraft and is updating and improving this exceptional platform with modern technology to achieve the lowest per seat per kilometre cost.

Khoa is in India for two reasons—need and ability. He sees India, with a coastline of approximately 27,000 kilometres, spanning nine coastal states and four Union Territories and comprising twelve major ports and two hundred smaller ports, as the ideal economy to benefit from seaplanes. The Indian blue economy, which accounts for around 4 per cent of its GDP, can easily be made 10 per cent with the deployment of seaplanes. The Indian aeronautical industry has the maturity of becoming the global hub for manufacturing Albatross 2.0 seaplanes.

It is a pleasure to meet young visionaries like Khoa, who have staked their lives pursuing their dreams. It is the passion of people like Khoa, which I consider the most potent force on Earth; the rest is an old story that keeps repeating itself, with or without the intervention of people. And why do I say this? Projects like seaplanes can transform India’s blue economy, create jobs, and protect its vast marine ecosystems. More important than what you do is how your work affects the lives of others. When people discuss how AI and robots will lead to the loss of jobs, Khoa talks about how the blue economy can generate millions of jobs, particularly in coastal and rural areas, providing livelihoods in fisheries, tourism, and renewable energy.

David Deutsch (b. 1953), a British physicist at the University of Oxford, is among the world’s foremost philosopher-scientists alive. He has worked on fundamental issues in physics, particularly quantum computing, quantum information and constructor theory. I learned about him through his books The Fabric of Reality (1997) and The Beginning of Infinity (2011). Though not popular books, they reached me through the invisible hand that keeps people connected in a bizarre and wired manner, if not by design.

Why should an ordinary person bother with questions like reality? My friend and cancer surgeon, Dr Chinnababu Sunkavalli, is also a philosopher-doctor. The other day, he narrated an interesting anecdote. A young TV journalist interviewed people at a busy railway station in a typical global metropolis (which could be Paris, London, New York, Tokyo, or Mumbai), asking what the most absurd fact of the modern world is. People gave different answers – income inequality, urban slums, climate change, crime, cryptocurrencies, etc. When the question was put to a Buddhist monk, he posed a counterquestion instead of answering it.

He asked the interviewer, “Who are you?”

I am so and so, the journalist answered.

“That is your name; who are you?” the monk repeated.

“I am a TV journalist.”

“That is your occupation; who are you?”

“I am a human being,” the journalist answered, a little frustrated at the way the conversation was going. 

“So are 8 billion people on the planet.”

“I don’t know what you are asking,” the journalist finally answered, giving up.

The monk smiled and said, “That is the most absurd fact in the world. You don’t know who you are.”

The yaksha asked a similar question to Yudhisthira in the famous Mahabharata story: What is the strangest fact in the world? Yudhisthira answered that everyone knows that he will die, as whoever is born must die, yet he conducts his affairs as if he is immortal, acquiring possessions that must be left behind.

Adi Shankaracharya declared in the 8^th century, ‘ब्रह्म सत्यं जगत् मिथ्या जीवो ब्रह्मैव नापरः’ This profound statement conveyed three principles – (1) The Ultimate Reality, be it cosmos or even beyond that, is truth, (2) Not this phenomenal mortal world, and  (3) Humans, though mortals, contain Ultimate Reality within them.

Let us consider this profound but strange idea in the context of an AI bot that is given the task of learning from human intelligence. These bots interact with human activity through the ‘senses’ given to them and find patterns using evidence-based reasoning. Taking the purpose of human life as sensory pleasures and worldly acquisitions – name and fame, and fussing about likes and dislikes, hatred and attachments is living a bot’s life. 

But what is bot learning? What does ‘reality’ mean for it? Indeed, a bot does not know why it is doing what it is doing. A bot is created to carry out its assigned purpose. The purpose of human life is to imagine and decipher the significance of human life in the cosmos. The universe is silent in terms of conscious signals and the cosmos outside our biosphere is sterile and depressing. To the Cosmic intelligence, people being born, growing up, ageing, and dying must be meaningless. Mithya is not ‘false’; it means ‘meaningless’.

David Deutsch’s books, mentioned here, are, therefore, essential for addressing these existential questions. The gist of The Fabric of Reality is a rational, scientific approach to understanding reality, emphasising the interconnectedness of knowledge and the universe. It confirms Adi Shankaracharya’s assertion astonishingly. Quantum mechanics leads to a cohesive theory that explains the universe as one ground of the entire cosmos and life on Earth (Advaita).

Deutsch emphasises the importance of knowledge as the basis for understanding and problem-solving, viewing it as a creative force that shapes our reality. The questions that emerge in the mind and the explanations generated in the quest for answers define the role of human beings in the cosmos. There may be many planets like Earth and many creatures like humans in the cosmos about whose size and extent we have yet to learn, driving us to expand our consciousness by asking questions and seeking answers.

In The Beginning of Infinity, Deutsch argues that pursuing knowledge is limitless and that our understanding of the universe can continually expand. There are no ultimate limits to what can be understood or achieved. Deutsch highlights humanity’s capacity to solve problems and overcome challenges through creativity and critical thinking. He suggests that every problem has the potential for a solution, reinforcing an optimistic view of the future. Mankind will continue to evolve as it has been.

Just as no one in 1900 could have foreseen the consequences of innovations made during the twentieth century – including whole new fields such as nuclear physics, computer science and biotechnology – so our own future will be shaped by knowledge that we do not yet have. We cannot even predict most of the problems we shall encounter or most of the opportunities to solve them, let alone the solutions and attempted solutions and how they will affect events. (p. 197)

Dr Sunkavalli did not leave the monk’s answer to the TV journalist’s question open-ended. He showed me his iPhone and said, “This is ‘my iPhone’ by all means; it connects me to all my contacts. Anyone can reach me through this, and I can search for whatever knowledge I seek and store gigabytes of information I choose. But I don’t have the faintest idea of how an iPhone works, both as a device and the network that backs it, and yet I enjoy it.” This is the reality of a human being, a mere device in the world, with its unique ownership, contact details and information loaded but connected to the One Source. Human life aims to find explanations for the world’s mysteries not from the outside but from within, like Newton’s imagining of gravity, Einstein’s relativity and Kekule’s benzene ring. They did not observe them; they imagined. Their knowledge did not come from outside – how could Einstein have seen space-time bending or Kekule, the six carbon atoms of benzene making a ring? Their knowledge had come from within.

I am a mechanical engineer who worked for 15 years at the Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL) in Hyderabad. There, I developed the Trishul and Akash missile airframes and Titanium Airbottles. In 1992, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, then Chief of the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), decided to develop civilian spinoffs of defence technology. I came out of the mainstream to interact with doctors and learn from them to indigenously develop medical materials and devices as affordable import substitutes.

The success of developing a unique variety of 316L stainless steel led to the development of an indigenous coronary stent that became famous as the Kalam-Raju Stent. Cardiologist Dr B. Soma Raju, who guided this effort, invited me to leave the confines of defence research and development. We created the Cardiac Research and Education (CARE) Foundation, a biomedical research platform recognised by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India.

The importance of indigenous development cannot be overstated. Innovation—a new method, idea, or product—is at the root of creation. Innovation involves creative brilliance and a particular type of people who think differently from the typical and conditioned ways of life. Using the vast infrastructure of defence R&D for civilian spinoffs was a historical innovation. We were driven to address the cost prohibitiveness, and our little initiative prepared the ground for many multinationals to open their factories in India.

By the turn of the new millennium, I found myself stranded, working with doctors and with little government support forthcoming. The advent of broadband connectivity saved the day for me, and we remained relevant by developing teleradiology, which became the basis of the Pan-Africa e-Network launched by the Government of India to connect African hospitals and universities with their Indian counterparts. The concept of delivering medical images directly from where they are generated to expert radiologists at their locations addressed the issue of a shortage of radiologists in the country. For a while, radiology became the most sought-after medical speciality, but as imaging machines became intelligent, the role of radiologists was reduced to verification. 

Then came the era of generative AI, and machines started learning from radiologists’ work. Major equipment manufacturers integrated machine learning features into their machines, enabling imaging machines like CT and MRI to instantly identify patients’ apparent health issues. Today, machines can deliver highly accurate results, not only in imaging but also in laboratory tests. Blood is still needed, but in minimal quality—a drop rather than a vial—and soon, even that may be replaced by non-invasive methods.

Saying that COVID-19 was a watershed moment in modern times may sound like a cliché, but the fact remains that it has changed the way the world works. The way in which primary healthcare was abandoned during that period and private hospitals made money, is an embarrassing testimony to the fact that healthcare has become a commercial business. The medical profession has almost destroyed itself, being controlled by big money; most hospitals function with profit-making policies and how things will change is unclear. 

So, the focus shifts back to innovation; its purpose is now redefined as delivery rather than mere availability. How do we take intelligent machines to needy people? They cannot access expensive hospitals because of a lack of money, nor are they always welcomed, as their presence is often viewed as spoiling these hospitals’ clean, polished ambiences that outshine even five-star hotels. This situation is untenable and, unless corrected, will lead to another healthcare crisis sooner rather than later.

Over a decade ago, I met Dr Bharat Veeramachaneni, an Internal Medicine specialist. The grandson of legendary leader Smt. N.P. Jhanshi Lakshmi (1941–2011), Dr Bharat is conscious of his responsibility towards primary healthcare. We create unsolvable issues for ourselves if we neglect to serve the poor and fail to address their issues. Once a pathogen develops anywhere, it becomes impossible to stop it. Today, the biggest problem is the need for more doctors in primary healthcare settings. Before the NEET system, state governments used to deploy doctors to work in such settings before granting them a PG seat, but now, no one goes there. What is the remedy?

I shared the famous story of Belling the Cat with Dr Bharat. In it, a group of mice agrees to attach a bell to a cat’s neck to warn them of its approach in the future, but they need help finding a volunteer to do the job. Technology, funds, and people are available; political will needs to be improved. I asked Dr Bharat if he would bell the cat. He surprised me by saying, “The time to bell the cat has long since elapsed. Our inability to mount a combined and concentrated effort, which included the screening and triage of patients at the primary healthcare level, adversely impacted and overwhelmed our secondary and tertiary healthcare response to the COVID pandemic, causing morbidity and mortality on an unprecedented scale. It is time to deal decisively with a difficult or dangerous situation or live burdened with chronic diseases.”

The productivity of a nation directly depends on the health of the country. With the existing secondary and tertiary healthcare infrastructure, which has neither the required manpower nor the physical reach, it is impossible to cater to the healthcare needs of 1.42 billion Indians. This challenge is compounded by the financial burden of accessing secondary and tertiary care centres for health issues that can often be managed at the primary healthcare level at a fraction of the cost. The responsibility for healthcare delivery cannot rest solely with corporate hospitals and private health insurers, who would manage it for their profits, which is a no-brainer.

There is an urgent need to develop a robust primary healthcare infrastructure: a formidable force of specialists fully vested with knowledge, power, and authority tasked with protecting our nation’s health. Further strengthening our primary healthcare with government policies and new-age tools such as AI would help improve surveillance, delivery and service efficiency and provide an opportunity to educate people on maintaining good health and preventing diseases. AI can bridge the six cardinal information gaps in receiving treatment in the hospital – first contact, longitudinality, comprehensiveness, coordination, person or family-centeredness, and community orientation.

Yes, the time to bell the cat has long since elapsed. The bull is running amok in the shop of fragile glassware, and the only way to prevent further damage and destruction is to take the bull by the horns, wrest control of our great nation’s health from the clutches of private and for-profit players and place it firmly back in the hands of capable, empowered primary healthcare providers. The question is not who will allow it but who will stop it. Life is all about taking the right actions at the right time.

Myths often reflect the creativity and storytelling traditions of cultures. They can be seen as symbolic narratives that explain natural phenomena, human behaviour and societal values. These stories often incorporate fantastical elements and characters illustrating human experiences and emotions. Can mythology be interpreted as profound metaphors or even a coded system of secrets? I believe myths contain deeper meanings, metaphorical truths and cultural values that their fantastical narratives might obscure. Hidden messages about morality, rituals, or societal structures are conveyed through myths and passed on to successive generations. Sometimes, myths can serve as allegories for psychological experiences or historical events.

Even in the 21^st century, half of science is dogmatic and no different from myth. This includes the celebrated molecular biology theory that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to protein and cannot happen in a reverse fashion. There is no proof, but it cannot be disproved either. After the conclusion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, which sequenced all 3 billion ‘letters’, or base pairs, in the human genome, the mystery of life was declared an open book. However, a confusing dilemma rapidly emerged: while scientists could copy the text, they could only comprehend a small portion.

The vast bulk – up to 98 per cent – of our DNA does not code for proteins. Much of this ‘dark matter genome’ is assumed to be nonfunctional evolutionary remnants that are along for the journey. However, numerous critical regulatory elements are hidden in this noncoding DNA that controls thousands of gene activations. Furthermore, these elements have a significant role in diseases including cancer, heart disease and autism and may hold the key to potential therapies. No wonder the modern medical industry is busy mainly with ‘managing’ chronic diseases for which there is no cure. Even questions like why one has high blood pressure are not answered.

The observable universe is limited to only a fraction of what we know and observe. The portion of the universe we can detect from Earth, including the Hubble telescope which is stationed 525 km above Earth’s surface, spans about 93 billion light-years in diameter. Still, it is just a tiny part of the entire universe, which might be much larger or infinite. Approximately 95% of the universe comprises dark matter and dark energy, which are not directly observable. Dark matter is thought to account for about 27% of the universe’s mass-energy content, while dark energy is believed to make up around 68%, driving the universe’s accelerated expansion.

How incredibly the Shiva Purana describes Lord Shiva, the unmanifested primal God, as using 10% of His power to create Vishnu, the Lord of the manifested universe

संप्रधार्येति स विभुस्तया शक्त्या परेश्वरः ।

सव्ये व्यापरायन्चक्रे दशमेऽगें सुधासवम् ॥

[Lord Brahma narrates] The Almighty Lord of the Supreme, as by that power He is to be understood, perfused with nectar [activated] a tenth portion of His left side. (Rudra Samhita 6.37)

Even the name of the manifested God is not arbitrary. ‘Vishnu’ embodies the preservation, protection and sustenance of the universe. The ancient Indian imagination of the cosmos as an ocean, specifically the ‘Kshira Sagar’ or the ‘Ocean of Milk’, is profound and accurate. Various forms of life and the universe emerged from the Cosmic Ocean.

The ancients brilliantly captured reality by identifying ‘God is in every living being’ and identifying this divine presence with Narayana, ‘floating over waters’. The view that ‘all other elements appeared from that great Being’ encapsulates a profound sense of spirituality that encourages reverence for life and emphasises the oneness of all existence, promoting a compassionate and harmonious way of co-existence. Not only me but all others; everything else is God-originated and God-sustained.

The universe is unimaginably vast, with billions of galaxies, each containing millions or even billions of stars, many of which have their planetary systems. The Earth is just one small planet in a medium-sized galaxy (the Milky Way), among an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. While the Earth may seem tiny on the cosmic scale, a mere sand particle in a desert, and I am among more than 8 billion like me living here, the idea of interconnectedness suggests that every part of the universe is part of a larger whole; all human beings carry with them One divinity, whatever it is.

Ancient Indians captured this with the spectacular imagery of a lotus flower growing out of Vishnu’s navel and a four-headed, red-coloured Lord Brahma sitting in it. The flower symbolises the transient nature of human life and experiences, and it comes out of Vishnu’s navel, suggesting that our physical existence is a small chapter in the larger narrative of the universe.

The origin of life on Earth remains one of the most intriguing scientific mysteries. While several theories propose how life could have begun, a definitive explanation has yet to be established. A hypothesis suggests that life might have originated from self-replicating ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules that may not have originated on Earth but arrived here via comets, meteoroids, or interstellar dust. The way the ancient Indians described it, ‘Lord Brahma, being playfully kept upon the lotus’, is fantastic.

The Shiva Purana mentions an exciting argument between Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma. Lord Vishnu treats Lord Brahma as His junior because he has grown out of Him. Lord Brahma refutes this, sure of His independent origin, powers (four heads), and potency (blood-red colour). So, an infinite column of light appears between the two warring ones, exposing the pettiness of their thinking. They both attempt to measure the column of light by trying to reach its end: Lord Brahma, as a swan, goes upward, while Lord Vishnu, as a boar, goes downward. However, they still looked for its boundaries even after travelling for thousands of years. Lord Brahma laments:

सत्वरं सर्वयत्नेन तस्यान्तं ज्ञातुमिच्छया।

श्रान्तो न दृष्ट्वा तस्यान्तमहं कालदधोगतः॥

[Lord Brahma tells Narada Muni] I quickly made every effort to find the end of it [the column of light]. Exhausted from not seeing, He [Vishnu] was also back, I fell into the abyss of time. (Rudra Samhita 7.62)

So, what do I envisage as 2024 draws to a close? According to mythology, the duration of Kaliyuga is around 4,32,000 Earth years, of which hardly 5000 years have passed. There is a long way ahead, and thousands of human generations will roam the Earth before the curtains are drawn in whatever be the final act. How narrow and short a human life of some seven, eight, or nine decades is in the cosmic drama! And yet, the incredible fact of our times is that we are close to transferring information from living brains made out of carbon to those made from silicon and taking intelligence to other planets where the human body may not survive without water and oxygen, but silicon brains can.

The image of Lord Brahma sitting on a lotus is soothing, though the scary infinite serpent of Time can’t be ignored and wished away from the frame. Indeed, the romanticised aspects of life often mask the challenging realities of ageing, illness, and mortality. While love and connection can bring immense joy, the inevitability of health decline and loss can create significant emotional turmoil. Embracing the full spectrum of life, its beauty and difficulties can ultimately lead to a richer understanding of what it means to be human.

I exist. My family, friends, and people I wouldn’t say I like all exist. I face situations both comfortably and disquietly. I feel happy and sad, relaxed and anxious. Like a flowing river, the stream of thought in my mind sometimes flows smoothly, sometimes torrentially, sometimes transparent, and at times muddy. Many fish keep lurking in my consciousness. Maybe I am lucky not to have an alligator!

Who am I? What do I know? Do I express my feelings to others without fear? Am I firm in my values and beliefs? Am I free of biases, pride and prejudice? Am I calm, serene, grounded in my faith in the One Consciousness operating across the cosmos, and believing that whatever is happening is the only way it could have happened? I have aged every year, and will be 70 soon. People my age have already started departing. After all, the average age of an Indian is 67 years, and I have already lived longer than that.

Confined to my home on health grounds and having retired from work long back, I read a lot and write regularly. I am connected to some good-hearted, thoughtful people through my blog, which is read across five continents. I have seen the world transform – from postcards, public phones, and bank tokens to the Internet on mobile phones and digital money transfers. I can access any library and read any newspaper sitting in my home. I can order my medicines and hot food online. There is no need to go to the cinema, where I once stood in the queue and bought tickets in black.

A lot has happened for the good. Although the poor people remain poor, they are not as miserable and helpless as they used to be. Things have improved for everyone – roads, water, electricity, and a sense of social equality cannot be denied. But what has not changed, or may I say has worsened, is the peaceful contentment with which my middle-class parents lived. They struggled with their meagre means but provided what was necessary, and my three siblings and I never felt uncared for on any account. Now, well-off people are complaining about almost everything. Why is it so?

Human society is a well-evolved system. For centuries, people have developed ways to live together with their own methods and manners, different in different places but suited to their surroundings. Some people are knowledgeable, scholarly, forceful, authoritative, enterprising, transactional, and happy in their servitude. As we say in the language of System Engineering, a balance is somehow arrived at that may not be the best but is optimal. This local equilibrium has been disrupted in the last two decades. Mobile phones and the Internet have turned what was considered ‘privileged’ into ‘commonplace’. 

Well-crafted dramas circulate on TV, seeding discord and rivalry in families and violence in communities, and criminals have become role models. Politics has been hijacked by big money, and governments, instead of being the custodians of public interest, seem to have become facilitators of corporations. Consumer culture has been unleashed, encouraging people to buy fancy things and products. They are lured to borrow money even if they don’t have to spend it, creating a new form of slavery. No wonder there is discord in families, unrest in society and a general climate of unease everywhere.

We no longer live our truths but ‘the roles defined’ by the powerful electronic media machinery. Everyone has been given a mobile phone with ‘free’ bandwidth, which can ‘trap’ their inquisitive minds from exploring, just as rats are captured in homes. Food has been industrialised – cooked in large quantities and ‘delivered’ to the house. Hospitals have become more like hotels, the insurance system supports high tariffs, and the premiums have become more like a ‘tax’ on the living. All roads collect ‘toll tax’, drinking water has become a commodity, and education has become a farce. Whatever you study, a competitive exam system that runs like an industry selects only the ‘best’.   

The world as it has emerged is a consumer base of 8 billion people eating, procreating, getting sick, and competing among themselves for their little comforts and conveniences, where a few corporations have amassed wealth that is more than the economies of nations, and turned mankind into ‘consumer machines’ and the world into ‘a marketplace’. Apple Inc. is as giant as the Indian economy in terms of money. This is the truth, and as for the facts, it depends on which TV channel you watch, your social-political orientation, what your Internet search and ChatGPT tell you, and what you want to know and ignore.

However, certain realities remain. I will state three of them here.

The first reality is impermanence. What was there yesterday is not there today, and what is there today will not be there tomorrow. For example, when you bathe in a river, you have new water every time you take a dip, as the earlier water has already flowed downstream. You are getting older, and your children are growing up. Livelihoods are changing, roles are changing, and the standards of right and wrong, proper and improper, are changing too. General courtesy, respect for elders, compassion for the poor, charitable hospitals and schools are memories.

The second reality is mortality. Whoever is born will die. Here, I must mention my observation that disease and death do not necessarily go hand-in-hand as they are made out to be by the healthcare industry. I have seen many people with disability and chronic diseases praying for death every day of their lives but continuing to live while healthy and happy people suddenly drop dead. (I am not including accidents here.) Even alcoholics and smokers may live longer than many health-conscious people.

The third reality is Maya, the illusionary power that clouds our minds and refuses to let us see things as they are. In Hinduism, Maya is created by God Himself to sustain materiality in which ‘an experiencer’ has been introduced who has given himself the name of ‘Human’ and started believing himself to be God, forgetting that the earth is merely a sand particle in the cosmos and that he is only one of the eight billion people who are already living there. Maya operates through hubris and greed, fulfilling your ‘larger than life’ image and attitude of ‘entitlement and privileges’.

While it is very appealing to read Shri Krishna telling Arjuna that he is a soul and not the body, the disturbance we experience due to things like a delay of an hour in getting food or an electricity breakdown on a hot and humid night, or someone ignoring us, not answering our calls or not replying to our emails, is testimony to the sordid state of our being, which is nothing more than our bodies and minds. I am inclined to consider myself as an actor who was given the role of a king in a drama, and after the show was over, the crown, the sword, and the dress were taken back. No payment was made as it was a charitable show, and everyone participated as a volunteer. The worst was that no one even recorded the video.

That is how I dreamt about myself recently.