Jernail Singh Anand, a celebrated laureate of prestigious awards – Seneca (Italy), Charter of Morava (Serbia), Franz Kafka (Germany, Ukraine, Czech Republic), Maxim Gorky (Russia), and Signs Peace Award (Italy), and the author of an incredible 190 notable books, whose name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia, is a towering literary myth from Chandigarh with amazing vision, wisdom, philosophic insight, and terrific creativity. Anand embraces universal consciousness and the essentials of Indian culture and heritage, celebrating an integrated vision of universal unity of man, society, and humankind.

The onslaught of rapid computer-oriented incursions into entirely new and uncharted regions of thought baffles calculative efforts to underscore the growth and expansion of the mind with pragmatic drive. These are the provinces that attract a multifaceted contemporary philosophic prodigy in the literary world – a genius like Jernail Singh Anand, defying definition. He unites science fiction, technology, and spirituality, weaving connections and disjunctions, destruction and integration into the speckled mechanisms of life that artificial intelligence presents.

With wide-ranging concepts, futuristic outlook, and formidable distortions, Anand challenges rational understanding, taking the reader into directions uncultivated, where technology, AI, science, spirituality, and extra-terrestrial regions shape the new lyrical epic – ‘The Alternate Universe.’ Book I of the Cosmic Trilogy is a phenomenal philosophic treatise, where characters from different realms – earth, religions, technology, science, and spirituality – converge. Anand creates a scenario of despair, ruin, and casualty, seeking relief in the Alternate Universe, a deemed heaven – a baffling concept for man in search of supreme joy.

Excitement unfolds as one moves from Lustus to Craza – equally fascinating invitees – drawing man toward uncertainty, crisis, and the annihilating loss of hope, joy, and peace. This results in the concept of the Overlap of Souls – a morally ambiguous platform suspended between Hell and Heaven. To find relevance in the world becomes a central issue, and Anand struggles to establish harmony among the three key players – science, technology, and spirituality.

Brahma calls a summit of Indra, Vishnu, and other prominent gods. In a profoundly mind-stirring debate on civilization, wisdom, greed, wealth, power, and the world’s false illusions, the poet states:

Men don’t want to lead happy lives.

Men don’t believe in a class society.

Humanity is a divided house.

You cannot finish struggle

For power and subsistence.

Craza forecasts a new territory – Space K Plus – a domain that could redefine relations between men and God. Here, trans-reality phenomena emerge, leading to challenging circumstances where Craza and the Prophet face a true test of identity. After immense deliberations, Brahma finally accepts Craza’s vision, and the project ‘The Alternate Universe’ takes form. This world is not eerie or bizarre but unusual and beyond human imagination – the birth of a new man, the impersonal man, and the emergence of mechanized existence stripped of soul, even as gods hesitate to grant Craza full freedom.

In conclusion, Anand believes that technology and AI can contribute to the growth and nourishment of the spiritual world, serving as a source of divine grace and blessing to humanity. Thus, the epic journey to ‘The Alternate Universe’ – at times eccentric, frustrating, mystifying, and deeply challenging – invites the reader to pause and reflect: Where do we go from here?

(The writer is a senior bureaucrat, retired IAS, author of more than 60 books, and a noted reviewer and philosopher from Palampur, HP)