Image by Copilot Designer I was in the Virtual Reality Museum when a commotion broke out. Something went wrong somewhere in the museum. When the lights came back on, Ashoka stepped out of the digital screen and greeted me in the most amiable way. I pinched myself to make sure whether I was dreaming. When the power went off, I was speaking with Ashoka – Emperor of Kalinga, 3 rd century BCE – in a VR interaction. Now this is real, Ashoka stood in flesh and blood right before me. The last question I had asked him in our VR encounter was about his conquest of Kalinga. Didn’t he know that the war would be disastrous even before he began it? That was my question. “The war was necessary,” Ashoka said as he stood in front of me. “Necessary for my spiritual transformation.” He was tired of all the luxury in the palace. There was abundance of everything from food to sex to comforts. “What I lacked was meaning,” he said. So he went and killed those Kalingans who were rebels anyway ...
Prime Minister Modi was taking a dip in the mineral water pond constructed on the bank of the Yamuna as part of his weekly photo op when Siddhartha Gautama aka the Buddha walked into the office of the National Committee for Correcting Civilizational Narratives (NCCCN) in Central Vista, New Delhi. An email was received by “Dr Sri Siddhartha Gautama Buddha PhD” from the PMO [Prime Minister’s Office] inviting him to attend a meeting “to authenticate and align the curriculum with indigenous perspectives as part of implementing the National Education Policy, NEP.” Siddhartha was amused on receiving the mail. “Is it possible they still wish to learn after proclaiming themselves the Vishwaguru?” He wondered with a wry smile. He was more amused to see the honorary doctorate conferred upon him by the Vishwaguru Vishwavidyala, in Spiritual Sciences. It’d be interesting to make a visit, he decided. When he entered the opulent office, whose floor was paved with Italian marble tiles, he reca...