Echoes of Kanishka

The Agra Conspiracy  

A Budha statue of Kushan Era

I had gone  to Delhi from Kolkata for the Pujas when I ran into **Sam Singh**, just back from Agra. He looked restless, full of a story he couldn’t wait to share. Over cups of chai in my flat, he leaned forward and said, almost in a whisper,  

*“You won’t believe what I just saw down there. It started at Meena Bazaar…”*  

Sam Singh’s Account  

Agra’s Meena Bazaar is something else—you feel like every stall is a doorway into another century. Brass lamps polished to perfection, antique wooden toys, Mughal-style miniatures. I’m not really an art man, but I was staring at one shop when I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt, the German couple staying in my hotel.  

They looked excited. Turned out they were chasing something rare: a *Magadh style* painting influenced by the **Kushan dynasty**. I knew a little about it. The Kushans were a Central Asian people who swept into India around the 1st century CE. At their peak, they ruled from Afghanistan into northern India, even brushing shoulders with the Roman and Chinese worlds. What made them special wasn’t just war—it was what they built. Their empire was a bridge across civilizations, thanks to the Silk Road.  

And their art… ah, that was extraordinary. In Mathura, under their patronage, the Buddha came alive for the first time in human form: broad-shouldered, smiling, robes flowing. Their paintings had clean lines, rich pigments, influenced by both Greek naturalism and Indian spirituality. Later, when the Mughals came, painters in Mathura revived that Kushan-inspired aesthetic, blending it with Persian touches. That was the famous *Magadh school of painting*—and that’s what the Schmidts were after.  

That same day they found one. Bought it for two lakhs from a dealer. But when I saw them that evening at the hotel lounge, they were pale. The painting was gone—stolen from their room.  

We rushed to reception, checked the CCTV. And there he was—the very dealer, walking out of the hotel, painting under his arm. But here’s the twist: how had he gotten inside their locked room? Swipe-card access only.  

That night, I stayed in the lobby. Around midnight, I spotted the hotel IT boy—thin, nervous—picking up a fresh swipe card. I followed. On the phone, I heard him mutter, *“I’m going to the Frenchman’s room… he bought the ashtadhatu Krishna, 14th century. Card’s ready.”*  

And boom—it all fit together. Duplicate cards, inside job. The Schmidts weren’t the only targets.  

I tailed him out into the alleys of Agra. He went straight to a broken-down warehouse by the Yamuna ghat. Inside, waiting for him, was **Salim**, the art dealer. And in Salim’s hands? The stolen Magadh painting.  

I tried to stay hidden, but one wrong step on gravel gave me away. Salim’s scarred face swung toward me. Knife in hand, he lunged. What followed was chaos—I sprinted through alleys full of rickshaws, startled dogs, sacks of turmeric spilling gold dust into the air, with Salim hot on my heels like a hawk.  

At the riverside, I thought I was cornered—but that’s when the police, tipped off earlier by me, swooped in sirens blazing. Officers tackled Salim mid-run, his knife skittering across the stones. The IT boy froze, then broke down crying.  

When the police unrolled the painting, there it was—the calm face of a Bodhisattva, rendered in that ancient Kushan style: simple, powerful lines, meditative eyes, pigments still alive after centuries.  

The racket tumbled quickly. The IT boy confessed to forging cards. The receptionist had been feeding guest details. Salim had been stealing back items he “sold” and passing them off to smugglers. The Frenchman was saved from losing his Krishna idol, and the Schmidts got their painting back.  

Henrietta touched it gently, whispering, *“It feels like time itself survived just to reach us.”*  

And in that moment, my mind went back to the Kushans. To Kanishka, the emperor who built massive stupas, hosted the Buddhist council, and made sure Mathura’s art reached far beyond India. Without them, Buddhism’s imagery might never have traveled across Asia, inspiring caves in Afghanistan, China, even Japan. They were nomads once—but they became patrons of eternal art.  

Funny, isn’t it? Centuries later, I’m there in Agra, chasing thieves through lanes, still trying to protect the same art they once saved. History doesn’t die—it just changes its thieves.  

**

The Skyline of Ujjain

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🌑 The Skyfire of Ujjain

Chapter One: When Rahu Devoured the Sun

It was the early 6th century CE, in the ancient city of Ujjain, when whispers of the heavens stirred the people. Word had spread through the bazaars that Rahu, the headless demon, would rise that day to devour the sun. Priests in saffron robes sprinkled holy water on the temple steps, urging the people to gather with drums and conch shells.

Among the crowd stood four young companions — Durya, Vihan, Arav, and Saanvi. They had slipped away from their homes, eager not only for the spectacle but also for the whispered promise of something greater: the prediction of Aryananda, the young astronomer of Nalanda.

“Look at them,” Vihan chuckled, nodding toward a group of elders already chanting hymns. “They truly believe Rahu stretches his jaws to swallow the sun.”

Durya frowned. “Our parents believe it too. My mother would not let me eat this morning — she says food becomes poisoned when the demon is out.”

Arav smirked. “If Rahu can eat the sun, why does he spit it out again? Why not swallow it whole and be done?”

Saanvi, her eyes bright, whispered, “Aryananda says it is not Rahu at all, only the moon passing before the sun. He even wrote the time on his palm for me yesterday — he said the darkening will begin just after the temple bell of midday.”

The air grew heavy. Priests raised their voices, urging devotion.

“People of Ujjain! Do not fear the darkness. Strike your drums, beat your vessels! Drive away Rahu with the thunder of your faith.”

The temple bell rang. A hush fell. The first bite of shadow crept across the blazing sun.

“It is happening!” Saanvi gasped. “At the very moment he said!”

The crowd broke into cries, the priests into louder chants. Drums thundered, cymbals clashed. Yet the four friends stood still, watching in awe as day turned to twilight, birds flew confused, and a ring of fire crowned the darkened sun.

Vihan whispered, “This is no demon’s bite. It is a shadow.”

Durya’s voice trembled. “If Aryananda is right, then our parents are wrong. What will they say?”

Saanvi’s gaze never left the sky. “They will say what they wish. But we saw the truth today.”

The eclipse passed. The sun blazed again, and the priests proclaimed triumph:

“Your devotion has defeated Rahu!”

The crowd cheered, but the four exchanged knowing glances. A seed of doubt had been planted.

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Some Years Later

Another eclipse was foretold. Aryananda once again gave his calculation, and once again the heavens obeyed his numbers.

Durya murmured, “It cannot be chance.”

Arav grinned. “Faith alone cannot time the heavens.”

Saanvi whispered, “Truth shines, even when eclipsed.”

And Vihan said softly, “Perhaps one day the people will listen.”

The priests scowled, but the youth of Ujjain were beginning to turn their eyes to the stars with new wonder and quiet courage.

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Footnote:

This story is set in the 5th century CE, during the time of Aryabhata (476–550 CE), one of India’s greatest mathematician-astronomers. While the characters are fictional, it is likely Aryabhata faced both reverence and resistance for his rational postulations, which often contradicted prevailing mythological beliefs. His key contributions include:

Heliocentric hints: Proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis, causing day and night.

Eclipses explained: Stated that lunar and solar eclipses occur due to the shadows of Earth and Moon, not mythological demons like Rahu and Ketu.

Pi (π): Calculated π ≈ 3.1416 with remarkable accuracy.

Algebra & trigonometry: Introduced concepts of sine (jya) and cosine (kojya), used in astronomy.

Zero & place value: Advanced the Indian number system that became the foundation of modern mathematics.

Planetary models: Gave methods to predict planetary positions with surprising precision for his time.

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Sidhu, the Bengali Robot

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Sidhu, the Bengali Jules

The chicken cutlet at DKS was hot, crisp, and so mustardy that my nose felt like Netaji had just marched through it. That’s when Samaranand dragged in a young man whose hair looked like it had permanently taken part in a College Street rally.

“Meet Dr. Bhaumik,” he announced proudly, “professor of Robotics at Jadavpur.”

“Robotics? In Jadavpur?” I almost choked. “I thought you people only produced poets and protest marches. Now robots too?”

Bhaumik smiled, his hair still rioting.

“Sir, we’ve made a robot that can blink, smile, and nod when you talk.”

“Wah!” I clapped. “So, basically, you’ve invented the perfect Bengali husband.”

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The Bengali Frankenstein Lab

Between watery coffee and Samaranand’s smug face, I learned the truth. They had stitched together man-sized robots:

Plastic skin from a doll-maker in Howrah,

Amazon-ordered motors (free delivery, mind you),

Coimbatore micro-engineering,

Korean lithium-ion cells (because Indian batteries faint after two torchlight sessions).

“They even look human,” Bhaumik said proudly. “We wrapped the machinery inside mannequins.”

“Next you’ll tell me they complain about fish prices in Gariahat,” I muttered.

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Enter Talukdar and Sidhu

Their prototype was gifted to lonely Talukdar, a widower with a son in America who believed that one WhatsApp call a month was enough to prove devotion.

At first, Talukdar treated Sidhu—that’s what he named the robot—like a toy car, driving it around with a remote. But slowly, Sidhu became a companion.

Mornings, Talukdar would dress him in shorts and T-shirt.

“Exercise korte hobe, Sidhu. Health is wealth,” he declared, patting his metal shoulder.

By evening, Sidhu wore a kurta.

“Adda without kurta is like macher jhol without mustard.”

At night, Talukdar lovingly put him in a sleeping dress and placed him beside the bed. If he woke up at 2 a.m., he would whisper:

“Sidhu, ekhono ache to?”

Sidhu’s eyelids blinked twice. Comforted, Talukdar drifted back to sleep.

The bond grew. Sidhu didn’t just listen, he looked present—a silent, smiling shadow in Talukdar’s house. One day, Talukdar even offered him luchi at the dining table. By some mechanical twitch, Sidhu raised a guava to his mouth.

“Dekho, he’s eating!” Talukdar shouted proudly.

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Banerjee Joins the Club

Banerjee, Talukdar’s friend, had a wife whose daily quarrels could defeat Arnab Goswami in a shouting match. When he discovered Sidhu, his jaw dropped.

“Sidhu, bol to, am I wrong, or is my wife a hurricane in a sari?”

Sidhu blinked. Nodded.

Banerjee gasped. “You understand me better than anyone!”

From then on, he visited morning and evening, pouring his heart out. Sidhu blinked, Sidhu nodded—marriage counseling without fees.

The housing society buzzed.

“Talukdar aar Banerjee ekdom alokito hoye gache! Is it yoga? Baba from Burdwan? Or foreign multivitamin?”

Nobody guessed it was a plastic-faced robot in a lungi.

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Samaranand’s Triumph

Meanwhile, Samaranand strutted like a Bengali Edison.

“See? Loneliness cured! Jules had an alien, Bengal has Sidhu.”

Dr. Bhaumik nodded, hair still defying gravity. “Robotics with Rabindrasangeet touch.”

Then they turned to me.

“Royda, apni-o ekta nebey?”

I laughed so hard my tea spilled.

“Are you mad? I already have Sikka, Jaggi, Paul to talk nonsense with. If I bring Sidhu home, my wife will say—‘Good, now sell your friends and buy another robot.’ Then what will happen to our adda? Robots can nod, but can they argue Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal?”

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The Afterthought

That night, though, I couldn’t help thinking. If Sidhu had existed when my father was alive, he would’ve loved it—someone to listen for hours, nodding, blinking, smiling, never contradicting.

Maybe loneliness doesn’t always need aliens like in Ben Kingsley’s Jules. Sometimes all it takes is a plastic-faced listener in a kurta who blinks on time.

And in Bengal, that’s rarer than hilsa in December.

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Ghosts by the Hoogly :A Widows Rebellion

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Ghosts by the Hooghly: A Widow’s Rebellion

In the dim glow of oil lamps and the faint moonlight filtering through the banyan trees of 19th-century Bengal, when electricity was but a distant dream and villages slumbered under the weight of ancient customs, winds of change whispered faintly. It was the age of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the tireless reformer of Bengal, who dared to challenge the ironclad traditions that bound society.

With scholarly fervor, he pored over scriptures in his modest home, presenting arguments before courts and progressive thinkers.

“These young girls,” he declared, “widowed before they even knew womanhood, deserve life, not exile.”

Yet the orthodox ridiculed him mercilessly. Whispers in bazaars called him mad, pamphlets caricatured him as a destroyer of dharma. Before him, Raja Rammohan Roy had slain the demon of Sati, but Vidyasagar’s war—against child marriage, enforced widowhood, and the rampant polygamy of lecherous old men across castes—was an even steeper hill.

Old men, swollen with wealth and lust, traveled village to village in search of brides barely ten or eleven. Families, crippled by poverty, surrendered their daughters for dowry’s cruel exchange. And when these aged husbands perished, the child-brides were cast out—shorn of hair, draped in white, condemned to lifelong mourning in ashrams or the ghats of Kashi.

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The Secret Sisterhood

Far from Calcutta’s courts, on the banks of the Hooghly, rebellion brewed among these forsaken souls. A band of young widows—Sita, Lakshmi, Radha, and others, none above twenty—met in secret at the village pond during ritual baths. Their whispers were carried on the ripples of water.

“No more,” hissed Sita, her eyes burning beneath her veil. “These old vultures feast on our lives. Let them taste fear.”

Their sympathetic brothers—silent allies ashamed of society’s cruelties—hid nearby, ready with sticks and courage. While Vidyasagar waged his battle with pen and petition, here, in the shadows, justice would take a ghostly form.

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The Haunted Path

One sultry evening, as dusk bled into night, Hari Babu, a notorious old groom of sixty-five, trudged toward a poor farmer’s home. His belly jiggled, his teeth were red with paan, and his thoughts gleamed with greed: gold bangles, a corner of land, another trembling child-bride.

But the path wound past the misty village pond. And from its reeds emerged figures in tattered white saris, their faces smeared with ash, hair wild and unbound.

“Harrrriiii…” they wailed, voices hollow as the wind. “You left us to rot… we have returned!”

Hari froze. His mind reeled—ghosts! Ghosts of the young wives he had taken, abandoned, buried in shame.

Lakshmi, drenched in pond water, stretched her arms like a spirit risen from death. The others swayed and shrieked, their howls mixing grief with laughter.

Hari shrieked, dropping his betel pouch. “The widows! My brides returned from the pyres!” He bolted, stumbling through mud, his dhoti unraveling as he howled for help.

From the bushes, the brothers leapt, striking harmless blows with reeds to deepen his terror. Sita’s voice rose above the chaos:

“Begone, you leech! No child will bear your chain again!”

Hari, humiliated and terrified, tumbled into a ditch, scrambled out filthy and trembling, and fled the village, swearing never to return.

By dawn, word spread that the pond was haunted by widows’ spirits. Superstition became a shield, and the predatory elders kept away.

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The Greater Battle

While in villages, laughter cloaked as haunting chased away predators, Vidyasagar’s real war raged on. He endured ridicule, slander, and threats, but his resolve did not waver.

Finally, in 1856, his relentless advocacy bore fruit:

The Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act was passed—granting widows the right to remarry, to reclaim dignity and life.

In that moment, the voices of countless widows, whether wailing at ponds or sighing in ashrams, found a champion.

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Epilogue

By the Hooghly, the widows’ secret sisterhood dissolved back into the rhythm of village life. But sometimes, late at night, travelers swore they still heard laughter—half grief, half triumph—echoing over the misty pond.

And in Calcutta, Vidyasagar, “the ocean of compassion,” pressed forward, knowing each battle won was only the beginning.

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