Acknowledgments

I recall the days when the notebooks containing the manuscripts of this work were lying in my cupboard, almost abandoned and cast to oblivion, although the theme and the characters were living in my consciousness all the time, and leading me to relate them to life from time to time. It seemeAcknowledgementsd that I had forgotten them, but they would not let me forget them; especially Yajnyawalkya, with whom I had developed a love-hate relationship ever since I met him in the scanty pages of our Sanskrit text-book prescribed for Intermediate Arts syllabus of the years gone by.

The first witness to the inception of the theme of this book is my classmate from Elphinstone College, Usha Patankar with whom I share the contents of my heart to this day. We both remember the day, when after our classes were over and we were walking towards Churchgate station, how I had exclaimed, “I hate Yajnyawalkya!”

Later, in the course of time, for a long while, Yajnyawalkya, Usha and I had parted company, but at some level the relationship continued. When I started teaching English literature, the lost links with the lost continent were revived, and as I read Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the quietude of our dingy Patkar College reading room I could see the horizons of that continent in a new light of understanding. I started writing, wrote a few chapters every now and then; but there came a time when the pressures of life took precedence over inspiration, and the fictional narrative had to hibernate for a considerably long period.

It was so long that as years went by, I was scared to look at those notebooks lying at the bottom of piles of papers.

I had given up hopes that I would ever resume writing when something began to stir. It was the visit to a temple in our vicinity and the sight of the beautiful image of Goddess Durga in that temple. I have never seen Durga in such a beautiful manifestation as I saw her there every morning. But the message had to come to me through the human channel.

I used to feel curious about the silent priest who was dedicated to that temple and whose presence seemed to have merged with the presence of Durga there. I was surprised to find that this extremely silent person was an Acharya( a preceptor who has mastered ancient Sanskrit scriptures and is qualified to teach them), and had done his post-graduation from Benaras Hindu University in Sanskrit. I told him about what I was writing, how it had come to a stand-still and how I had lost hopes of resuming the writing.

I still remember the light falling on his face, the abstracted expression in his eyes, as he looked at a distant, invisible point in space and said, “You will write; you are going to write pages after pages. The writing is going to fill up notebooks after notebooks like these. You are going to bring it to completion.”

I did not believe him. But I started writing. Every morning he would place his comments in my notebooks, sometimes come up with fresh insights, and the narrative would proceed further. The work which had been put aside for years got completed in two years.

I must acknowledge my debt in gratitude to this person: Acharya Rajanikant Zha.

I must acknowledge the help rendered in terms of time, meticulous and tireless effort in going through the entire text for the initial formatting and editing, and technical assistance, by my husband Avinash, and son Neehar who gifted to me his laptop and got me started on the work of typing the text right away, even though I did not know the alpha and omega of typing. And it worked; I could type with marvelous speed.

My heartfelt thanks are due to my very first readers: my friend Mrs. Sangata Pol, and my brother-in-law, Major General Vinod Karnik who sat through the novel the whole night, not putting it down once before he finished it. Both Sangata and Vinod have a keen insight into Upanishads and the discussions I had with them on the topics related to my narrative were very insightful.

I must thank my publisher and his team of young, enthusiastic people who have won my admiration and respect for the efficient and elegant execution of the project.

And finally, I feel my thanks also go to the readers who have been reading the chapters of this novel as it was making its appearance on my blog ‘Ancient Indian Quest for Knowledge’. Although I do not know them personally, the +1s they added was always heartening for me. And how can I say that I do not know them? By now I do know them at a different level, and I must mention three of them whose steady encouragement kept me going on with the blog. I think they won’t mind if I mention them here; Annemieke Reffeltrath from the Netherlands, Saji Thankachan,  Amit Malhotra from Delhi, India, and Bernd Wetzel from Germany.  There are many others who I know, have been reading it on the blog, but whose names I do not know. My thanks also go them.

Sushama Karnik.