Sanskrit Shloka:
स्मृतिरपि कल्पनायाः द्वारम्—
न कदाचित् मिथ्या यातनाः।
कालेन रहस्यानि पुनः स्फुरन्ति,
यत्र जीवः स्वं रूपं वेत्ति॥
Smṛtirapi kalpanāyāḥ dvāram—
na kadācit mithyā yātanāḥ।
Kālena rahasyāni punaḥ sphuranti,
yatra jīvaḥ svaṁ rūpaṁ vetti॥
"Even memory imagined is a gateway—
Pain is never false.
With time, truths re-emerge,
Where the soul remembers its true form."
---
The rain had eased to a drizzle by the time Kunal and Ananya reached his apartment. The मुंबई (Mumbai) skyline shimmered, caught between neon reflections and ancient shadows. It was a city that never forgot—even if its people did.
Kunal unlocked the door slowly. There was a tension on him now, quiet but suffocating, like a memory trying to breathe through centuries of silence.
"You sure you're okay?" Ananya asked, stepping in and shaking rain from her चुनरी (chunari)—her scarf. "You've been zoned out since the library."
Kunal lit a cigarette. Smoke spiraled around him like incense rising from an ancient yagna pit. "Something about today… felt like a piece snapped into place. But I don't even know what the whole picture is."
She frowned at the cigarette but let it pass.
He moved to his desk. On his screen, the शिलालेख (śilālekha)—stone-script they'd photographed—still glowed faintly.
"This script," he muttered, "I shouldn't be able to read it. But I do. Not just understand—it feels like I wrote it. Like it's mine."
"That's not déjà vu, Kunal." Her voice had softened. "What if it's memory?"
He turned, sharply. "You're saying I'm remembering a past life?"
Ananya didn't flinch. "I'm saying maybe you're not losing your mind. Maybe you're regaining it."
She reached into one of the old volumes from the library and flipped to an illustration—a stone carving of a regal young man standing beside सम्राट अशोक (Samrāt Ashoka).
The caption:
Prince Kunala—Heir to the Mauryan Throne.
Kunal stared.
Not a mirror—but a resonance. The arch of the brows. The intensity in the eyes. A likeness sculpted by destiny more than blood.
"No fucking way…" he whispered.
"Read this," she said, pointing to the page:
> "Kunala, son of Emperor Ashoka, revered for his wisdom and dharma, was betrayed, blinded, and cast out. Some chronicles say he died forgotten. Others claim… he vanished."
A sharp throb stabbed behind Kunal's eyes.
And then—
The vision came.
Darkness.
Cold.
The stench of mold and blood.
He was kneeling.
Blind.
A voice—twisted, cruel:
"त्वं पुनः न पश्यसि। (Tvaṁ punaḥ na paśyasi.)
You will never see again."
He gasped, stumbled backward, crashing into the desk. A chair tipped.
"Kunal!" Ananya rushed over, hands on his shoulders. "What did you see?"
He could barely breathe. "A prison… stone walls… blood in my hands. I was blind. I was him."
Ananya's face paled, but her grip held strong. "This is memory. Not madness."
Kunal leaned into her touch, his heart pounding.
"If I really was him… कुणाल (Kunala)… then I need to know why. What happened. Who did it."
Ananya nodded, her voice steady. "Then we find it. If history erased you, we'll rewrite it."
He looked back at the page. For the first time in his life, Kunal felt something like gravity—but not downwards. Inwards.
A force pulling him through time. Through truth. Through the very skin of reality.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
But inside—
The storm had only begun.
To be continued...