“I’m terribly sorry, I hit a huge wall in my project.”

“You’re a quantum physicist, Arvind. Surely, you can come up with a better excuse”, said Mani. He was sitting at the bar across a young woman. The dimly lit pub was teeming with energy.

“Purva, this is Arvind Mali – IISER’s boy-wonder. Arvind just wrapped up a groundbreaking paper on molecular entropy. If that wasn’t geeky enough, he also writes code for kicks. Arvind, this is Purva Joshi, fellow-geek and budding astrophysicist”. 

“Mani is too kind for my own good. Pleasure meeting you, Purva. I interrupted your chat. Please, do go on”. 

“It’s my honor, Dr. Arvind. Mani was just lamenting the rigors of searching for love in the age of algorithms. Matches, matches, everywhere – not a heart to win.” 

Mani raised his brows. “Alright”, he said, “watch this”. The trio gazed at the barman as he held a mug under the tap with a precise tilt. A dark beverage flowed into the mug like lush black tresses falling off a woman’s shoulder.  

“Without this”, Mani said while pointing at the foamy crown, “…it’s not Guinness. It has no soul. Pour it any other way and you won’t see it. True love brings out the soul. So, I don’t drink Guinness from cans or find love on apps.” 

“Touché”, said Purva, “… a toast to the Don Quixote of Kothrud?”. “What do you say, Arvind?” Mani and Purva had a hearty laugh. “Cheers!”

Arvind was still as a rock; dazed and confused. Then, in a sudden move, he embraced Mani into a bear-hug. “Mani, my friend, you’re a rockstar” – and walked right out the bar.

That night sowed the seed of Arvind’s most ambitious project.

He reckoned that, in a world without rules, one’s most ideal companion is their love in a past life. Tried, and tested. Love can’t be seen. Yet, it can be felt. And there is only one part of the self that matches the same description: the soul. The foamy crown. What if one could trace a soul?

For three years, he tested the limits of his idea. He minutely examined subjects living and dead, isolating the molecular activity around their bodily and neural functions. He observed an energy that ebbed and flowed, reacting differently to every person. Among the freshly deceased, it hovered momentarily before losing all trace. Once, Arvind felt the energy drawing close but before he could extend a hand, it disappeared.

Arvind designed a prototype that could map this inexplicable energy and tag it with a unique code. Based on this soul-code, the prototype could generate that soul’s most compatible counterpart. The device could then locate a soul-mate anywhere on the planet. Arvind started with himself. Soon enough, he cracked his soul-code. Only a minor hurdle remained: for the device to work, it needed to be fed with the first match. In other words, Arvind would have to find the love of his past life.

Arvind was back to square one. But he wasn’t one to give up easily. He scoured through dozens of books and blogs for insights into the soul. Not one decent lead. Until one evening, as he aimlessly scrolled through cat videos, his phone threw up an intriguing clip. It was Dr. Parita Sahay, professor of spiritual studies at DSV University, analysing the haunting beauty of past lives. She spoke of souls with the same passion as Arvind did of entropy.

The next day, he left for Rishikesh.

Parita was skeptical. Like men of faith, scientists too can be overzealous about the ‘one truth’. But she also enjoyed a challenge. A meeting was set up.

“Thanks for seeing me at such short notice. I’ve watched your lectures. I must admit, I don’t agree with most of it – but I admire the conviction.” 

“Thank you, professor – and likewise. Your email was a bit cryptic, to say the least. Tell me, how can I help?” 

“Yes… security concerns. May I get straight to the point?” 

“By all means.” 

“Can you speak to my soul?”

“Wow, just like that?” 

“Just like that.” 

“It’s not that simple.”

“I’m all ears.” 

“This realm is energy. It has no beginning, no end. Physical existence is just an aberration. Only souls with unfinished karmic business manifest in human form. The body is ephemeral. The soul is eternal. Every soul is unique. Like a needle on a blank record, every heartbeat shapes the soul with its own music. Only one other soul can hear this music. And you want me to help replace this cosmic function with a machine?” 

“Well, yes and no. Normally, all matter disintegrates. Doesn’t matter if it’s human or planet. Everything breaks down. Everything dies. It’s only a matter of time. But, for reasons still unclear to me, the soul seems to stay on. It may be the only instance of reverse entropy. While soul-matter disintegrates when the body stops, it regains shape. The soul remains in flux until it finds its mate. This is why some people abruptly grow an entirely different conscience and temper after adolescence. Yet, only human arrogance can presume to have figured it all out. God is only as powerful as we can imagine him to be. We are nothing but playthings of chance.”    

“She. And she is more powerful than any man can imagine. If we’re slave to chance, what made you choose to be a physicist? Let me guess: the pursuit of truth? And what’s the truth? You say it began with one body of mass exploding into a bang that we are still living through. That one day, we will disintegrate into nothingness – only for gravity to pull it all back into a singular mass, until the next bang is triggered. Interesting. Only the Gita said that already and, I’d say, explained it much better. Your ‘scientific’ pursuit for truth is no different from a disciple’s quest for God.”

“Alright, we can agree to disagree. But there is one thing common between us.” 

“What’s that?”

“We both know we don’t know for sure, and we try anyway. That, I suppose, is what makes us human. I don’t know if every soul has one mate. But something tells me it is. That’s what makes me try finding out.”

“Alright”, she smiled, “I’ll help you.”

“Perfect. You’re a star. So how does it go?”

She leaned closer to him, reaching for his palms with hers. Their eyes were locked in a deep gaze. His surroundings faded into a blur. His watch stopped ticking. Bit by bit, he was losing himself to her. There was no place to hide. She saw him like he never did before.   

Before he could make sense of it, she withdrew. His hands felt cold, abandoned. She was taken aback. “Impossible”, she whispered to herself.

After a moment, she narrated the attributes of the love of his last life; gave him an outline of her soul. He took copious notes; but didn’t see the solitary tear roll down her cheek.

“Thank you, Parita. I’m forever in your debt.”

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

They shook hands, he could only feel the warmth of her palm.  

“I’ll be running the numbers on my device at my cottage; it’s right down the lane. Would you like to see how it works?” 

“If it works.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” 

They used a hand-rickshaw to reach his cottage, where Arvind fed all his findings into the device. 

“This might take a while. How do you feel about showing me around this exciting town?” She smiled. 

They stepped out, where banks of the Ganga welcomed them with a cool breeze. Tiny beads of water peppered the air. The holy river flowed like liquid paradise, as the Sun slowly dissolved into the mystic water. A thousand diyas below and a million stars above illumined their narrow path. 

They spoke for what seemed like hours. Neither was prepared to part.  

“Oh, I completely forgot.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I’ve got the most exquisite tea back at the cottage. Would you care for a warm cup? We could discuss my findings. Maybe later I could walk you home. ” 

She glanced at her watch, hesitated, and looked up with a nod. 

He brewed a fresh batch of Darjeeling tea. Their conversation, too, brewed on a steady simmer. It only struck him later: his prototype had been running all this while. Arvind’s soul-mate awaited on his laptop.

He rushed to the study. His laptop was half-open, facing the wooden floor.

“Arvind, are you alright?”, she said. He stared at the floor, a green light bouncing off it.

He walked towards his laptop, paused a moment, and gently tapped it close.

-Ritvik Kulkarni