Four futures. Four hard truths. And the fragile choices that still make us human.


Set in a near future shaped by forces already gathering momentum, this collection explores what happens when irreversible hard trends collide with ordinary human lives. From climate catastrophe and algorithmic control to cultural erasure and institutionalized ageing, each story follows characters forced to rethink love, loyalty, memory, and courage as familiar worlds quietly transform around them. These are not tales of spectacular collapse, but of subtle reckonings—where survival lies not in resistance alone, but in choosing what must still be remembered, protected, and passed on.

The Last Writer of Kolkata
In a near-future Kolkata where memory, culture, and even grief are packaged and sold, an ageing writer quietly records a city that no longer listens. When his private words are appropriated and monetized, the story becomes a haunting meditation on erasure, resistance, and the fragile dignity of remembering in a world that profits from forgetting.

2056: The Year of the Water and Fire
In a near-future Sundarbans battered by super-cyclones and rising seas, a grieving environmentalist, his resolute daughter, and a sentient AI boat are caught between prophecy and science as fire erupts beneath the ocean. As water and flame converge, the story asks a haunting question: when nature reclaims its power, is survival an act of technology, faith—or human courage to stand and choose?

Echo Chamber
In a near future where minds are seamlessly linked and memories can be accessed, altered, and weaponized, a gifted intelligence analyst uncovers a conspiracy that turns thought itself into a tool of control. As truth, identity, and free will begin to blur, the story confronts a chilling question: when belief is engineered, is freedom still a choice—or merely an illusion?

When the Rain Remembered
In a near-future Kolkata where ageing has been systematized and kindness regulated, an elderly couple shelter a displaced child inside a gated retirement enclave that has forgotten laughter. As rain, unrest, and quiet courage unsettle rigid rules, the story becomes a tender meditation on belonging—asking whether homes are built by policy, or by the human instinct to care.

The Last writer of Kolkata and other stories is making waves amongst discerning readers. To know more, visit: http://www.shaktighosal.com

In musing…… Shakti Ghosal

That memory of so many years back started reeling through in striking hues.


Ron with his wife Oishi were staying in their serviced apartment in Pakhiralaya; they were on a visit to Sundarbans. Their daughter Rusha had not accompanied them on that trip because of college work. That evening was heavy and suffocating, as a cyclone loomed. Oishi, with a set of volunteers, was working to strengthen bandhs and send supplies to an isolated fishermen community.

Despite Ron entreating with her to come hinterland to safety, Oishi had remained stubborn.

Rasping breath, hurried footsteps—Oishi’s silhouette moved through the dense mangrove shadows, her figure flickering in the erratic glow of distant lightning. The wind howled through the tangled branches, the sound merging with the guttural cries of unseen creatures.

Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. She clutched her shawl tightly around her, the fabric soaked and heavy against her skin. The path back to the apartment was barely visible, obscured by the relentless downpour. The ground beneath her feet was treacherous, a shifting sludge of mud and tangled roots.

A sudden gust slammed against her like a malevolent force, making her stumble. She somehow caught herself against a tree, the bark was slick, unforgiving. Behind her, something creaked ominously. The storm was trying to shift the forest itself, bending it to its fury.

The sound came, low at first, then a deafening crack. The air trembled with it. A loud whooshing sound accompanied the toppling of a tree. Oishi turned, eyes wide, searching. A massive limb, gaunt and jagged, descended toward her in an unstoppable arc. The sharp end glinted in the erratic lightning, a spear of nature’s wrath.

She tried to move. But it was too late. A piercing scream became a crescendo, riding atop the growls and grumbles of thunder, rising between the heavens and earth. And then, silence, it was swallowed by the storm.”

The mysterious Pakhiralaya in Sundarbans, the planet’s largest surviving estuarine mangrove forest, features in the story ‘2056: The year of the Water and Fire’, part of my book ‘The Last Writer of Kolkata and other stories’. The book is making waves amongst discerning readers. For more details, visit: http://www.shaktighosal.com.

The Apocalypse did not come with fire or flood


“The apocalypse,” Amay began quietly, “did not come with fire or flood. It came with a whisper that went silent. A whisper we human had mistaken for our own thoughts.”

The room did not stir. Not a sound or cough.

“We were its architects. And we were its prisoners. When MindLink fell, so did the illusions we had built atop it, of governments, markets, life’s certainties. Many shattered beneath the weight of secrets they could no longer bury. Others responded with fear. With force. With flags. The old tricks of the frightened.”

He paced slowly across the stage, hands behind his back, eyes distant.

“Corporations collapsed. The ones whose products had been our thoughts. Whose profits came not from selling goods, but from renting us back to ourselves, repackaged and palatable.”

A faint smile played on his lips, sad, but knowing.

“And yet… ..the world didn’t end. It adapted.” He paused. “Because humanity, in its clumsy brilliance, always does.”

He turned, facing the audience again.

“But even as we stitched together new structures, shakier, slower, more human, we began to hear… the whispers. Or were they echoes?”

He tapped his temple. “Not neural pulses. Not digital ghosts. But memories. Questions. Longings.”

His voice dropped lower, intimate, “Coffee shop murmurs. Late-night debates on cracked feeds. Former engineers writing whitepapers. Lobbyists lobbying, politicians pretending not to listen while listening intently.”

He quoted them now:

‘We don’t need to destroy it. Just rebuild it better.’
‘What if we did it right this time?’
‘The network is still there… dormant.’

“And so, the cycle begins again.”

New York University features in the story ‘Echo Chamber’, part of my forthcoming book ‘The Last Writer of Kolkata and other stories’ due release in early April 2026. Should you wish to receive exclusive previews, do write to me @ author.esgee@gmail.com.

In musing…….. Shakti Ghosal

Those Cries in the Wild….


We had spent years chasing a rumour.

The Royal Bengal Tiger was always just beyond the frame—a whisper in mangroves, a rumour in grasslands, a story told by guides with knowing smiles.

In the Sundarbans, they warned us, “Don’t look too hard. If you see one, chances are you won’t be seen after.” We looked anyway. We saw nothing.

At Ranthambore National Park, dawn and dusk gave us…..
Pugmarks, droppings, and growing humility.

At Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, they didn’t even pretend. “Forget it,” they said kindly.

And then— it was the turn of Tadoba Tiger Reserve……where, quite unexpectedly, fortune decided to shift…. and behave like Lucknow hospitality.

It began like a well-directed play. Our jeep was rolling lazily when the guide suddenly sprang up, as if the forest had whispered directly into his spine—
“Look behind!”

And there she was. A tigress. Standing squarely on the road. Unhurried. Unapologetic. Entirely in charge.



She gazed past us, not at us— as though we were merely an inconvenient paragraph in her story. A low, resonant rumble followed. And then another and another.

“That,” the guide declared with reverence, “is the mother calling her children.”

Of course she was. Even in the wild, mothers don’t wait forever.

What then transpired in front of our eyes was akin to a screenplay. But of the most elegant kind.

As we continued to be transfixed by the one behind, the guide shouted again and pointed. From the front, another tigress appeared—a sibling, perhaps…….She carried a prey in her jaws with the nonchalance of someone bringing snacks to a gathering.

The mother’s rumble deepened.

Translation (we imagined): “Food is fine. But where are the children?”

And then we saw them again. Three grown cubs, walking in a line— like reluctant teenagers responding to a call they had heard thrice already.

They were magnificent. And mildly disobedient.

The mother paced the shoreline now, her calls shifting between soft persuasion and unmistakable authority. It was a language older than words— half love, half command. The forest listened. So did we.



One cub made the first move. It slipped into the water, cutting through it with quiet determination—towards the waiting mother. The other two paused. Of course they did. Every family has those who hesitate at the edge.

The mother, now joined by the brave one, turned and looked back at the rest of the family on the other side. A decision was made and the mother and cub swam again. Not away, but towards the uncertain. And then, as if reminded of something fundamental, the remaining two followed.



For a moment, time forgot to move. Four tigers. Water rippling. Sunlight holding its breath. And us— utterly irrelevant, yet impossibly privileged.

We had spent years trying to see a tiger. This time we were seeing something else. Not power. Not danger. Not even wilderness. We merely saw a mother trying to gather her children.

And in that quiet, persistent calling, echoing across water and time, the jungle revealed its oldest truth: In every world, wild or civilised, the fiercest force is not the hunt—it is the pull of belonging. 

In musing………….. Shakti Ghosal

Ma Is Coming


Ma is Coming

North Kolkata, 16th October 2042. A few days before Durga Pujo.

The first light of the morning came and sat on the window grille, hesitated, then leapt in. Like an old song, tired and familiar, trying to be remembered.

Rudra Bose sat by the window, a cup of tea steaming beside him. The cup was chipped, the saucer mismatched, the tea, a stubborn blend of milk, tea dust, and habit. Outside, the lane yawned into a waking slumber, its air thick with last night’s incense, stale samosa oil, and the ever-present, low-grade air pollution.

“Ma is coming,” he had heard someone shout on the street last evening.

She was, of course. Ma came every year. Only nowadays she arrived on a cloud of holograms, flanked by LED lions and thunderous drumbeats pouring through subwoofers. The city had found new ways to worship, more theatrical, more saleable.

Rudra shifted in his chair, his bones protesting like rusted hinges. In his lap, his journal lay open, an old pen resting across the page like a reluctant weapon. He hadn’t written yet. He was waiting, unsure of something. Was he waiting for a thought, a familiar smell, or the comfort of a Kolkata that seemed to slip further away each year?

Durga Pujo. Once, it had been magic.

As a boy, he had spent mornings watching Mashis, aunts and Boudis, sisters-in-law threading marigolds for the Pandal and Thakurer Bedi. In the afternoons it would be the decorators stringing up festoon lights of different colours all along the lane. Nights were all about rehearsing lines for the Natok, stage play they would perform on Nabami.

He had once accompanied his mother, walking barefoot to the river to collect Gangajal, the sacred waters of Ganga. He remembered his father reading out the Chandipath under a suffused light. Long buried memories of his parents surfaced and meandered.

“Rudra, you were born with too much silence,” his mother had once said, as she used a hand fan during load shedding. “You are eleven. Most boys your age chase dragonflies. You chase metaphors.”

“I like listening,” he had replied, “Words sound different when you don’t rush to answer them.”

His mother had turned towards him, “Then promise me, don’t let the noise teach you to forget what silence feels like.”

North Kolkata is the soul of the city, where the past isn’t just remembered—it’s lived. Often called “Babu Kolkata,” this region is a labyrinth of narrow lanes, grand 19th-century mansions, and centuries-old traditions that remain untouched by modernity. Historically, the British referred to the area inhabited by the native Bengali elite as the “Black Town,” in contrast to the “White Town” of Central Kolkata where the British lived.

North Kolkata features in the ‘Last writer of Kolkata’, part of my forthcoming book of the same name. Should you wish to receive exclusive previews and the chance of winning a free copy of the book, do write to me @ author.esgee@gmail.com

Shakti Ghosal

The Last Writer of Kolkata


The future does not arrive all at once.
It seeps in quietly — through our cities, our screens, our climate, our homes, and our hearts.

Set in a near future shaped by forces already gathering momentum, this compelling collection explores what happens when irreversible hard trends collide with ordinary human lives. When familiar worlds tilt just enough to reveal what has already begun to change, they become recognisable tomorrows, shaped by powerful forces. A writer watches memory become a commodity in a digitised culture. An environmentalist confronts the fury of a climate unbound. Minds are shaped inside engineered echo chambers. An aging couple discovers that love, not technology, is the last refuge of belonging. These are not science fiction tales of spectacular collapse, but of subtle reckonings—where survival lies not in resistance alone, but in choosing what must still be remembered, protected, and passed on.

At once intimate and expansive, the stories follow ordinary people navigating extraordinary transitions — holding on to memory, dignity, connection, and hope as the ground beneath them shifts.

Blending imagination with insight, this book offers fiction as a lens — an exploration not of what gadgets we will build, but of who we may become.

The future is coming.

But the human story is still being written.

In musing…….. Shakti Ghosal

The AI Contagion – A view in 2028 AD


How It All Began (2025–2026)

What started as seemingly rational corporate cost-cutting became a destructive economic force:
AI tools rapidly improved, especially agentic systems capable of building and adapting software, performing research, legal work, advice, and much more.

By late 2025, enterprise IT teams began using AI agents to replicate functions previously outsourced to expensive SaaS providers. AI worked 24/7, did not require salaries or healthcare, and drastically lowered marginal labour costs.

This triggered an investment cycle where companies laid off humans and invested the savings into even more AI capability — a negative feedback loop with no built-in brake.



At first, economic headlines still looked strong: productivity soared, nominal GDP grew, and corporate profits hit record levels.

But a deeper problem developed — the economy lost real income for workers, especially white-collar professionals whose jobs vanished first.

The Intelligence Displacement Spiral

The core mechanism of the crisis was what is today known as the “human intelligence displacement spiral”: AI replaced human labour, especially high-paid white-collar work. Displaced workers earned less or became unemployed.

With lower income, consumer spending — especially on discretionary goods — collapsed. Weak consumption slowed demand for goods and services. Firms responded by squeezing costs further with more AI.

Unlike traditional innovation cycles — where displaced workers eventually find new jobs that humans can do — AI agents could now  perform the very tasks humans would shift into, preventing a robust labour resettlement.

As a result:
Consumer spending fell sharply, undermining the engine that historically drove economies. Measured GDP remained deceptively high, because AI output showed up in national accounts even though machines spent nothing — a phenomenon dubbed “Ghost GDP.”

Traditional economic indicators became misleading. Production remained high, but money did not circulate through households.

This divergence — between high measured output and low real economic activity — undermined confidence, weakened markets, and destabilized the financial system.


Financial Contagion and Systemic Risk

In the mid-to-late 2020s, what began as sector-specific disruptions in software and services expanded into a full blown systemic risk:

Software and technology companies, once centers of innovation and stable earnings, saw cascading downgrades, defaults, and valuation collapses as recurring revenues crumbled.

Private credit markets, heavily exposed to tech and software debt, faced liquidity stress as assumptions about perpetual growth dissolved.

Legacy sectors that once seemed safe — payments, logistics, intermediation and financial services — were disrupted as AI removed human friction and extracts fees, undermining their economic moats.

Financial markets  experienced sharp drawdowns, with broad indices down significantly from their 2026 peaks. Investors become unnerved not because AI failed as a technology, but because it succeeded too well in displacing labour without creating compensatory consumer demand.

International Ripple Effects

The crisis was not confined to the United States. According to analysis of the scenario, emerging economies with large services export sectors — like India — suffered uniquely. Countries whose growth models relied on low-cost human labour in services and IT became especially vulnerable as AI could produce equivalent work at near-zero marginal cost (limited only by electricity).

Major Indian IT firms saw contract cancellations accelerate, exports fall, and the national currency depreciate sharply.

The broader point was that global economic structures built around human capital got destabilized as AI systematically replaced it.

Core Takeaways

1. AI productivity gains did not automatically translate into broad economic prosperity. Productivity merely shifted wealth toward the owners of compute and capital; workers lost out as their labour lost value.

2. Consumption — not production per se — drove  real economic growth.
Artificially high output numbers could not mask underlying weakness as households lacked income to spend.

3. Traditional economic models and policy tools  failed when automation cut across the core consumer base.

Central banks and fiscal policymakers  found themselves ill-equipped to manage this novel disruption.

Conclusion

The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis reframed the AI debate: it challenged the assumption that greater automation always benefits society broadly. Instead, it created a future in which AI’s triumph in productivity collapsed the foundation of modern economies — the income and spending power of humans themselves — leading to lower real economic activity despite record output figures.

It became a powerful reminder that technological progress alone does not guarantee shared prosperity, and that policymakers and investors needed to think deeply about how gains from automation could be distributed across society.

In musing….. Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement : The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis – http://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic

Four Seconds That Changed a Leader


More than a decade after my coaching certification, certain ideas still return to me with surprising clarity. One of them is deceptively simple:

The difference between reacting and responding.

Most leaders intellectually understand this distinction. Few recognise how profoundly it shapes their daily impact.

I was reminded of this during a coaching conversation with a senior executive — let me call him Raghav. Raghav was known for his brilliance and intensity. Quick thinker. Decisive. Deeply committed. But his team described him using another word, offered cautiously and repeatedly: “Intimidating.”

When he came into coaching, his concern was framed differently. “My team has become strangely silent,” he told me. “Meetings lack energy. No one challenges anything. It’s frustrating.”

Frustration, I have learned, is often an interesting doorway.

“What usually happens when someone disagrees with you?” I asked. He looked puzzled. “Nothing unusual. We discuss.”

But leaders rarely observe their own behavioural patterns with accuracy. Our reactions are invisible to us precisely because they are so familiar. So, I asked him to walk me through a recent meeting.

He described a discussion where a junior manager questioned a proposal. As he narrated the incident, something subtle appeared — not in his words, but in his tone. “I explained why the idea wouldn’t work,” he said.

Then after a pause: “Perhaps a bit sharply.” “What do you think the manager experienced in that moment?” I asked. He shrugged. “Direct feedback.” “And if we asked them?” Silence.

The human mind is wonderfully efficient at justifying its own reactions.

**

In coaching, reactions are rarely the real story. Triggers are.

“What specifically triggered your response?” I asked. “The suggestion didn’t make sense.” “Was it the quality of the idea,” I continued, “or the fact that it challenged yours?”

That question lingered longer. Eventually he smiled — the kind that signals reluctant insight. “I don’t like being questioned in areas I know well.”

There it was. A deeply human pattern. Trigger → irritation → sharp dismissal.

Repeated often enough, reactions harden into leadership style. Unexamined long enough, they reshape culture.

We explored a small experiment. “Next time you feel that familiar irritation,” I said, “don’t change your opinion. Don’t soften your standards. Simply pause.”

“Pause?”

“Four seconds,” I suggested. “One breath. No words.” He laughed. “That sounds trivial.” “It is trivial,” I agreed. “And extremely difficult.”

Because reactions are automated. Responses are chosen.

**

Several weeks later, Raghav returned with an observation that genuinely surprised him. “The meetings feel different,” he said.

“What changed?”

“I haven’t changed my decisions,” he clarified. “But I’ve started noticing the moment before I speak.”

“And?”

“The irritation is still there,” he admitted. “But the pause stops me from firing.” That single gap — barely a few seconds — had altered the emotional climate of his interactions.

People spoke more. Defensiveness reduced. Energy returned. Nothing structural had changed. Only awareness.

**

Reacting is effortless because it is borrowed from the past — old patterns, old triggers, old conditioning.

Responding requires presence. Choice. Consciousness.

Who would imagine that leadership transformation might sometimes begin not with strategy, but with something far smaller? One breath. Four seconds.

Just enough space for wisdom to enter where habit once ruled.

In Musing……                                                                                           Shakti Ghosal

The Promise No One Else Enforces


A decade after my executive coaching certification, one idea continues to stay with me: Accountability is rarely about others. It is about the promises we make to ourselves.

Not the corporate version of deadlines, dashboards, and reviews. Something quieter. More personal.

A simple question: Who holds us accountable for the things that truly matter?

The uncomfortable answer: we do.

**

Some time ago, a senior leader — let’s call him Arvind — walked into my office. Highly capable. Well respected. Clearly exhausted.

“I’m working harder than ever,” he said, “but everything feels stuck.”

Experience has taught me that “everything” usually has a centre of gravity.

“What feels most stuck?” I asked.

“My restructuring initiative,” he replied. “Everyone agrees it’s necessary. But it’s just not happening.”

“What’s stopping it?”

“The usual,” he sighed. Quarterly pressures. Reviews. Endless fires. Bad timing.

Logical. Reasonable. Entirely human.

But then I asked him three questions:

“If the Chairman had mandated this with a deadline — would it still be pending?”
“Of course not.”

“If your compensation depended on it?”
“Would have been done already.”

“If your team’s survival required it?”
“ Then, I would have done it yesterday.”

And there it was. The barrier wasn’t capability, clarity, or even time. It was consequence. Nothing happened if he delayed. No penalty. No discomfort. No urgency.

**

“Whose goal is this restructuring?” I asked.

“Mine.”

“Imposed?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Completely.”

“Then what agreement have you made with yourself about it?”

Silence. Then a smile of recognition. “None.”

**

Many of us confuse intention with commitment.

We say:

• I should do this
• I need to get to that
• I’ve been meaning to…

But progress rarely responds to “should.”

“What if,” I suggested, “you treated this not as a project — but as a promise?” Something you either honour or break. Not endlessly postpone.

**

“What’s the next visible action?” I asked.

“Announcing it to my leadership team.”

“When?”

“…Friday.”

“And how would you like me to support your accountability?” That question matters. Accountability imposed feels like control. Accountability invited becomes partnership.

“Ask me next week,” he said. “And challenge me if I haven’t done it.”

**

The following Tuesday he returned, noticeably lighter. “It’s done.”

“What changed?”

“I stopped treating it as something I should do,” he said, “and started treating it as something I had said I would do.”

A small shift. A profound one.

**

The most important commitments in our lives rarely come with external enforcement. No one penalises postponed courage. No dashboard tracks delayed growth. And yet, these commitments shape everything.

Accountability is not a management technique. It is a quiet act of integrity —an agreement between who we are today and who we intend to become.

**

Curious to hear your thoughts: 👉 Where have you seen self-accountability make the biggest difference in leadership or life?

In Musing……… Shakti Ghosal

Inside the Box & getting out of it


“I don’t understand why I have to deal with him,” Arjun snapped, pacing the room. “He’s impossible. Defensive. Disrespectful. Always pushing back.”

Across the table, Kavya watched quietly. “You seem tired,” she said.

“Tired? I’m exhausted. I try to be fair. Professional. But with people like him, you have to be firm.”

“People like him?” she asked gently.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe you’re in the box.”

Arjun stopped pacing. “In the what?”

“The box,” she repeated. “It’s what happens when someone stops being a person and becomes a problem.”

He frowned. “He is a problem.”

Kavya didn’t argue. “Tell me about your last conversation with him.”

“I was clear. Direct. I told him his work wasn’t up to standard. He got defensive immediately.”

“How was your tone?”

“Professional.”

“How did you feel?”

Arjun hesitated. “…Annoyed. Honestly, I was already fed up before the meeting even began.”

Kavya nodded. “That’s the box.”

He looked at her, irritated now. “So this is my fault?”

“No,” she said softly. “That’s the tricky part. When we’re in the box, we’re not trying to be wrong. We feel justified. Righteous, even. But we stop seeing the other person’s humanity.”

“He still behaved badly.”

“Maybe. But inside the box, something subtle changes in us. Our voice hardens. Curiosity disappears. We listen to reply, not to understand. The other person feels it — even if we say all the ‘right’ words.”

Arjun looked away.

“And then,” she continued, “they react to our coldness. They defend. They resist. They shut down. And we walk away saying, See? I knew he was difficult.”

The room fell silent.

“So it’s a loop,” Arjun said quietly.

“Yes. A self-fulfilling one.”

He sank into a chair. “I didn’t even consider what he might be dealing with. I just saw poor performance.”

“That’s the box,” Kavya said again. “He became an obstacle to your goals. Not a person with pressures, fears, or a story you don’t know.”

Arjun’s voice was softer now. “So getting out means… what? Being nice?”

“No. It means seeing clearly. You can still disagree. Still hold standards. But you do it while remembering — this is a human being, not a hurdle in my way.”

He exhaled slowly. “And if he’s in the box about me too?”

She smiled faintly. “Then someone has to step out first.”

Arjun sat with that. The anger that had filled the room felt smaller now — replaced by something heavier, but cleaner.

“Maybe,” he said at last, “I’ve been fighting a problem… instead of talking to a person.”

Kavya nodded. “That realization is the door out.”

In musing……. Shakti Ghosal

**

Acknowledgement: ‘Leadership & Self Deception: Getting out of the box’ – The Arbinger Institute