A week flew by and the Friend didn’t get any “creative inspiration”. She did research on Prime Numbers aka watched many Youtube videos. And then Youtube started feeding her with more and more on Prime numbers. How can the AI algos be so dumb - she thought - not even basic decency to hide the raw intent - desire to get a click ! A pressure was building in her to get going with the scene but something was amiss that she couldn’t verbalize to herself. It became clear when she saw her boyfriend.

Whats up ? - he asked - you seem to be lost - said the Boyfriend - they were early to their regular club. Their usual weekend watering hole with Fairy and Angel.

Well ! - I signed up for doing this small historical narrative but somehow, I am not getting the hook. Where should I start. And she passed on the printed story to the Boyfriend.

Wow - you have a print out - must be very important - he said!

It’s not an ordinary printout. It is done on a dot matrix printer - she laughed.

Seems like someone trying to glorify a river - he said after a quick read in couple of minutes - not bad though - you can get some good visuals of the rapids and the mountains on “Unity” stock library. In fact, you can simply text prompt “Unreal AI” to render this scene for you in immersive video - said the Boyfriend - this looks pretty straightforward.

That is least of my problems. I can figure out the tool set - she looked at the Boyfriend as if he was preaching to the choir - the reason we went to see this guy - all the way to Lake Tahoe - was to understand what happened to Matsya and he gave us a download on Ganga - a completely different character.

Suddenly she realized what was missing! There was no connection! She was not emotionally invested in Shantanu or Ganga as she was in Matsya.

Who is Matsya anyways - the Boyfriend played along - wait, you went to Tahoe to get this scene? Is it a big client!

Umm - No ! That is a long story - are you on Fairy’s social relay?

Yes, I am but lately I didn’t check up - been busy for the rules are changing. Whales are trying to force us out of the work - he tried to share his boring life but she didn’t appear interested. Creatives don’t get the tech - a fleeting thought he didn’t feel necessary to verbalize though he had this thing with the studios - mostly his clients - what exactly these people do! I mean anyone could have AI render a 3D immersive video with realistic audio. What value these so called “creatives” bring to the table? Yet, the world seems to be obsessed with designers of spaces and sequences and what not in the unreal world. He still had some respect for the original writers, particularly those with the writers’ guild who pledged never to use AI prompts to write long texts. They were the ones - he thought - still had a chance at saving human ingenuity - all other art forms were almost dead. But what could anyone do? - he wondered - for virtual worlds were the primary stage of communication these days. Long gone were the days when people went to a live concert or a circus as he used to go with his parents. Things changed so fast. Kids these days may never get a chance to know what real fun was!

She picked up his phone - showed it to his face to unlock; and opened the post - read this while I get you a drink. Yes he still used cell phones (like many in his generation) for most of the younger ones were opting for implants these days. Even parents were keen to request implants for the newborns - parenting was so much easier with implanted infants. They started talking as early as six months - walking by eight. And experiments showed that early implanted kids would be exponentially better adapt at letting their brains be used by AI during sleep - the best way to get nine hours of refreshing vivid dreams while implants used real neural networks to solve the real world problems - the modern way to contribute and get paid as well!

Holy crap - I heard a man was burnt alive in the forest fire but I didn’t know Fairy had tried to rescue him - he said as the Friend got back holding two IPAs back to the table - their usual ones.

Oh - that is not the point. We were talking about the story in the post - Parāśara and Matsya. She was about to dig a little deeper when she felt a pat on her shoulder. She saw Fairy as she turned around - think of the devil - she smiled at her - where is your Mister Angel!

He should be here any minute. He said he would fly in direct from work - said Fairy - remember he was gone for a week - Did you guys order some food - I got to eat just one wild berry all day long ! I am more hungry than Matsya was - she smiled ! The reference made “Boyfriend” cringe if he was missing something really important.

They were in the middle of ordering food when Angel joined in - 16 oz of hazy IPA for me. I had a big lunch late in the afternoon - he looked at everyone.

How was your meet up with Mentor? - he asked sitting down - no greetings. Angel was always quick to the business particularly with those he knew.

First of all I was not told that I was signing up for a job - she gave Fairy a “look” while responding to Angel - and second, the Mentor gave us something that we were not even looking for. I feel like you were gaming us!

Oh ya - added Fairy - I was like what happened to Matsya! And why is it so important to dig deep into Shantanu. Seemed totally unconnected to be fair!

The Boyfriend passed on the printed sheet to the Angel - can someone bring me to speed whats going on! - His voice lost in the growing chatter with in the joint.

Let me call him on his landline right away - said the mentor as he finished reading the sheet - he wanted to make sure the Fairy and her Friend were fully plugged into the story (instead of the actual incident). Unlike the “Boyfriend” he read it couple of times as if he was trying to find some connections to defend his position. But none.

Couple minutes into the call - even before he laid out the concern to the Mentor - he looked at the Friend - after putting his phone on mute - he is saying he emailed the next part to you the very next day. He couldn’t finish the entire piece before you reached there, so he wrote it up after you left and emailed the same night or probably the next day. Did you get it ? And he is asking if he could see it sometime next week - may be a draft version.

Now it was the turn for the Friend for look down. Fairy didn’t lose the chance to reciprocate with a “LOOK” - Talk about communication ! - Fairy said with a whimsical face; raising both her hands.

Who checks emails these days! - The Friend was furious as she looked through her personal inbox. It was there - unopened and unread! She giggled at herself - at least he should have sent it to all so that we could remind each other if one missed.

The first thing she did was to forward the email to all without even opening the attachment. Everyone on the table - including her Boyfriend - he too was part of the project now. She looked at him with a smile - you are also recruited now :-)

Her Boyfriend ran a small payments firm that helped independent creatives (like her) process micro payment for their creative work. Despite public payment rails in virtual worlds, whales were charging a hefty fee - even on the tips. He helped small shops set up their own payment nodes and relays to save a better part of their earnings. He was delighted when he read the second part. He couldn’t believe that Shantanu was in the roots of his business - Payments or Currency. He was the first who used “King’s stamp” to turn a wooden block into an “IOU”. They called it Mudra - the stamp.

The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word Mudra is the stamp. But since the earlier currencies were nothing but king’s stamp on piece of wood or leather, the currency itself was called Mudra.

Mudra

Shantanu was left alone. More he tried to stop Ganga more quickly she wanted to leave. She pointed to the king that he can’t stop the flow of water, and time. But the life did stop pulsing for Shantanu. He lost faith in reality. If he, despite being a king, couldn’t retain his love, what was the point of all the wealth and the armies. At times, he wanted to renounce the world but Dev was still not old enough to handle the politics. He didn’t want his son to pay the price of his messed up love life.

Ganga didn’t see this change as a “break-up”. Her point being - marriage was for a purpose - to bear the children. And more importantly to find a suitable heir for the most prosperous kingdom on the face of Earth. She was glad their union brought Dev to life who was unanimously agreed upon as a worthy successor despite being the youngest in all the princes. (The convention was the crown went to the oldest prince).

Not only the youngest, he was born out of an unconventional wed lock. She was in fact relieved off of a big responsibility. It was one thing to convince a lover for an unorthodox wedding but it was a tremendous weight to live the life under microscope. Everything had changed. And the expectation that she must give the kingdom its prince swept her normal life as if Ganges would sweep away an empty boat. Though she was still waterborne and on her projects, her mind was always preoccupied in safety and education of Dev. Now that he was old enough, she wanted to resume the life that she had always envisioned for herself. Shantanu, however, didn’t see the things with same eyes. Ganga felt her purpose as a mother fulfilled the day Dev was anointed the “Prince” of the land. Shantanu thought it was a mere beginning to the long and arduous journey to become a real King.

Even the decision to “move on” was not conflict free - people talk. The public opinion was the king had to pay the price for his recklessness. They said it was the result of not following the laid down rituals of ‘High Priests’. A king’s wedding should have happened as per the protocol. The politics with in his circles got trickier as many big houses wanted their girls wedded into the monarchy. They had many lobbyists, trying to pursue in merits of never keeping the crown without a queen. Saying a ‘no’, to a proposal, was always a ‘lose-lose’ situation. But no one felt like Ganga to Shantanu. Nothing clicked like she did.

What Shantanu didn’t realize - he was given an opportunity to see the life from a different vantage - an exact opposite one. His life was steady with Ganga's love anchoring him and now he felt rudderless. His council who were so appreciative of him for going out of the norms of wedding were now doubting his actions. He felt cheated at times - an emotion he was never even exposed to as a king. He didn’t know a thing that he couldn’t get and now the most important part of his life was gone and he couldn’t do anything about it. Suddenly he felt old and helpless. Destiny was trying to show him both sides of the coin. There was no way to run away from this reality unless he knew how to run away from his own being - his existence was on question in his own mind. How can someone dump a king and yet he was not over her. How should he face his people or his court. What must they be thinking of a man whose love let him down! He was not even sure if he should continue to love her or hate her publicly.

He also didn’t realize probably Ganga wanted him to feel scarcity

12.1

He tried to get out of grief in hunting and drinking but nothing worked. The only thing that made him lose himself was the work. Work turned into passion for him. He didn’t understand that it was the Karm Yoga that was pulling him out of separation anxiety, and plugging him back to the real world, but he could feel the presence of something magical. More he focused on work, more interesting it became. People slowly forgot his marriage debacle and they started appreciating the tireless efforts he had put in getting the complex balance of power into an absolute equilibrium.

The opportunity to see his life from an opposite perspective brought compassion to his life. He found himself much fuller and appreciative of the gifts of the nature. Many doors opened up into his own being. The desires were to work for work’s sake; not for the outcomes. Such a dispassionate view brought objectivity to his decisions. For example he handled the problem of Asuras not as a king but as someone who understood their point of view — he offered them their own land and allowed autonomy to practice whatever faith they wanted in their own dedicated kingdom. All without using a single arrow — through endless negotiations and diplomacy. For the first time in known history, peace was restored through compassion, not through war.

He took the works started by Ganga to fruition. Every city and village was connected through bridges. A vast irrigation system was set up. Dev led all these developmental efforts. He made sure no one in his kingdom slept hungry, without a roof or without proper clothes. The three basics were the responsibility of the state. As the prince turned into a flawless statesman, the king, finally thought taking time off for himself. He wanted to spend more time visiting regions around Yamuna, for he thought he spent more time on Ganges. And he wanted to meet grass root people — to understand their lives — live like them — face the pleasures and pains of life like a commoner.

Ganga's absence did to him what she always wanted him to do when they were together. May be she understood that the only way to have Shantanu live and mix with his own people was to leave a big hole in his life. Something that he couldn’t fill up even with the privileges of a king. He must have something that was beyond his means - like a common man who wouldn’t get the things he and his family craved for. King must feel scarcity himself to be able to appreciate the plight of lesser ones.

12.2

Living with ordinary people in villages inland off the banks of rivers, Shantanu realized the next big problem in his peoples’ life - after floods - was also related to the water - the lack of clean drinking water. People who could afford to live on or near banks of Ganges felt blessed because the water was sparkling clean. As if transported directly from the glaciers. But living on the bank of Ganges was costly and it was getting more unaffordable as the cities expanded along the length of Ganges. The water in ponds and even smaller tributaries was muddy. Some people ventured inland by digging up the wells but getting to a depth where water was as clean as Ganges was tough. That meant the vast expanse of land stayed unused. Shantanu understood he would never have realized the pain of people had Ganga not left him. Some simple problems are hard to understand through think-tanks and focus groups. You need to live them to know! And the solutions appear rather trivial in the beginning ..

The King started a new public service - to supply water from Ganges to those with in a day long walk - say from five to ten miles. People closer than five miles could walk to get their own water but it was lot harder for the farther distances - particularly for older populations. He recruited young men to carry Gangajal (Ganges water) to villages and sometimes even to the door steps. The program became a success but soon accountability became an issue. How to make sure that every home got the drinking water and carriers were paid their dues on daily basis. Dev came up with a brilliant idea.

Dev thought why not distribute King’s seal stamped on a piece of wood to all the villages. Village head would return the wooden seal in exchange of the water from Ganges. Wooden seals were easy to distribute and village heads could collect them whenever they ran out of them. On the other hand, the water carriers would deposit the seals back to the King’s exchequer and receive a copper coin for the service. He already had carpenters and his accountants along the length of Ganges to implement this service.

Starting as a small project with in the capital, the program got expanded to the entire kingdom and allowed villages to move further inland. King was happy that Ganges’ water was reaching everyone. In essence the Ganges water become a gift of the King. He was satisfied that he did what even Ganga couldn’t think of and he wished someone would let her know. Would she be proud of him? Would she return to see the villages deep inland getting the source of life. As the time passed, villages started exchanging the king’s seal within themselves for say grain, milk or fruits; in case they didn’t need water on a specific day. Accounting system to track the distributed seals was put in place.

This was probably the beginning of sovereign tokens backed by precious metals though we have no proof for it. What we know for sure is even today millions of Hindus walk hundreds of miles to get Ganges water twice an year. Known as Kanwariays, they deliver Ganges water to almost every home in India. The common belief is every Hindu home must have Gangajal for the rituals. At the very least for administering few drops to ones on the death bed. It is believed that a drop of Gangajal just before the death makes sure one reincarnates in better conditions than current.

Carrying Gangajal for ten miles was the “proof of work” that made a piece of wood equivalent to a copper coin. An equal weight of copper was set aside to balance a state issued wooden currency. Stamping wooden currency was lot easier than forging metal. We have obviously degraded the first principles - “one on one backing”. Sovereigns these days issue paper currency helter skelter though the tradition of carrying Ganges water still survived; and thrives in North India - particularly in the area of Kuru Kingdom.

One innovation leads to another. Many water carriers started using two wheel carriages to move buckets of water. This led to construction of in lands roads. One silver coin was equated to ten copper coins and so was one Gold coin to ten Silvers. Gold and Silver were treated as the store of value while copper coins and wooden seals became the transaction currencies. A new way to value creation was unleashed through road work, carpentry and mining activities.

Having made sure that the kingdom was on auto-pilot, and Dev was fully plugged in, Shantanu handed over the reins to the prince and took on this long journey to the farthest reaches of his state. Part of his motivation was to see if Dev could run the kingdom in his absence. And the other part was obviously to let go the responsibilities and live his own life for whatever was left of it after Ganga. As part of his journey, he paid visits to many Ashramas and Gurukuls to earn good will as well to find the deeper meaning of life and it’s purpose.

Many months into the journey, king felt most of his local representatives were spending enormous time (and effort), on rituals rather than putting in hard work to resolve the problems of common people. There was a ritual designed to address every type of problem - be it a flood, or no rain or even famine. He was not sure how to handle this problem. What is the right path? He had heard that Maharishi Parāśara advocated another path to peace. A path focused more on Karma than investing time and resources in pleasing the deities. And it had been a while he visited Madhu forest. A part of his kingdom, that still had infiltration of Asuras. It had to be a clandestine visit — he didn’t want to shake up the power structure of Naad Yogies around the monarchy without first having good connect with Maharishi and a deeper look at his ideology.

As the king was mulling over theses plans, a pigeon brought the message of Maharishi. The plans precipitated into actions. King must rally the help that Maharishi needed, but first he must meet the Yogi face to face — to understand the situation on the ground.

12.3

King and his chosen men, set up a camp many miles before Yamuna in a part of the forest that was rarely visited by locals. Forest was dense, such that even the fire smoke was beyond anyone’s easy notice. Ashrama of Maharishi Parāśara was across the river. He had heard about the philosophy of Maharishi, and his tacit support for scribing. The other side of Yamuna was beyond his official territory - claimed by variety of Asura lords since his last visit almost twenty years back.

He had heard that Ugrasen brought peace to this part of the frontiers with help from Maharishi though he had never personally seen Ugrasen. He didn’t know that Kansa had put his father and siblings into house arrest though being out of his jurisdiction, it wasn’t on his political radar anyways.

No one objected to people crossing state boundaries but for a king, it could be deemed as an act of aggression - it could trigger a political situation. To avoid unnecessary conflict, Shantanu decided to dress up like a commoner and cross the river with normal commuters. Not even his body guards.

He tied his horse a mile before the docks and walked like a peasant to the docks. It was not uncommon for Shantanu to visit parts of his state dressed like a farmer or a blacksmith. It was a common practice for kings (and ministers) to mix with masses to get a pulse on the “state of the union”. The only difference here was he was heading to an uncharted territory. In a way, it was exciting for Shantanu for he was tired of the security cordon that came with a position of power. He wanted to feel unsecured, and unhinged.

As the luck would have it, Satyawati's boat reached this side of the bank as soon as Shantanu arrived there. A sandalwood fragrance captured the bank. Deers and peacocks flocked to the bank along with waiting commuters to get a chance on Satyawati's magical boat. King was mesmerized by the scene. Being dressed like a commoner, he too got into the line to get on the boat.

The ride took more than an hour but for Shantanu, the time stood still. He was almost staring at Satyawati and when she started singing, with the waves of Yamuna, he was teleported to another world. First time in years, he wanted to fall in love. He wanted to keep listening to Satyawati's folk songs rooted in morning raagas. He had never thought music could be so evoking.

The boat reached the village wharf, commuters started disembarking. Shantanu kept sitting in the boat. Someone nudged him that it was time to get down. People were throwing the fare in a bucket tied to the mast, expressing their thanks to the crew for a beautiful morning ride and hurried to their daily chores. Shantanu got up and without a word, he dropped all the gold coins he was carrying in the bucket.

He hadn’t even walked few yards that he heard Satyawati. As he turned back, she was getting off the boat — Sir, looks like you left all your wealth for us! She had gold coins in her hand and she wanted to return them back.

These pieces of metal are nothing for the experience I had this morning ! — said the disguised king — maybe you can give me a ride back in the evening for I have nothing left on me. And he turned and walked away from the bank. Another minute there, and he thought he would fall for the beautiful woman. She is definitely not of this village - he thought, maybe not even an earthling.

Where are you heading to? — asked Satyawati — still not sure if she should take so much Gold. She was sure Dashraaj would be pleased, but something in her felt that this wasn’t a common commuter.

I am going to see Maharishi Parāśara. Would you be kind enough to point me the direction. I heard he lives nearby — said Shantanu.

The Ashram is half a mile to the North — Satyawati quickly added — and I will be here waiting for you to get you back across Yamuna. And she raised her hand. She felt as if Maharishi's prophecy was taking shape. This is the man that she was waiting for. Despite his middle age, he had an aura of a statesman. Satyawati was drawn to him. The fact that he was rich and he left everything he had for her was a sign that she was looking for.

As for king, a desire took birth. A feeling he had lost after Ganga, and the one he thought he forgot after years of being obsessed with his work. He wanted to live this new desire. After a long time, he asked something for himself. He might get that from Yamuna what he lost in Ganges - he thought, as he walked to the Ashrama … but how? Is it destiny playing another trick with him? One thing he was sure — it was real and he could see that in Satyawati's eyes. She wanted something more than all the gold he could give!