Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, with an opus of 190 books, is a towering literary figure whose work embodies a rare fusion of creativity, intellect, and moral vision. Laureate of the Seneca, Charter of Morava, Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky awards, his name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. Recently he dedicated his collection of 12 epics Epicacia Vol 1 and Vol 2 to Serbia and her brilliant poet and scholar Dr Maja Herman Sekulic.
‘The Divine Order Crashes’ is the Book II of Anand’s Cosmic Trilogy which negotiates questions of theology, transhumanism, and metaphysical ethics through a radiant confrontation between knowledge and mystery. If Part I (The Alternate Universe) sets the foundation of a cosmic restructuring of order through AI risking cosmic imbalance, Part II dismantles the celestial hierarchy altogether and shows how human overreach can disrupt celestial formations. “Anand stages this as both poet and prophet creating scenes which are Shakespearean in the scope of their ironic drama yet Platonic in dialogue” remarks eminent Roman scholar, Mauro Montacchiesi.
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Craza’s experiment in Book I, to enhance humanity with the help of AI runs into rough weather in Part II, because of some inherent problems. Lustus challenges Craza, and then tries to honey-trap him with the help of Helen and Cleopatra, the legendary beauties of the world.
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CLEOPATRA
Craza, both of us are here
At your service.
Have your heart’s fill.
AI can make women
From a new unknown alloy,
But it cannot make the Egyptian Queen,
Nor the Helen of Troy . [Canto IV]
When this does not work, Lustus makes an outreach to the gods with a clever plea that the Trimurti too has lost its inherent powers over the human clan.
If Lustus has behind him
The failed mission of Helen
And hallowed Cleopatra,
Angels felt the tremors of a world
Which had stopped looking up to them.
[Invocation].
Finally, to the utter relief of Lustus, the scales are tilted in favour of the Mystery. The proverb: “to err is human” proves its prophetic power, and Gods decide that men will remain in the error zone, which symbolises suffering bred in the ignorance of eternal processes.
The Zone of Error
Knowledge was denied to man, from day one, and if Craza tries to help uplift mankind with AI, the Gods, in a swift turn of events, find it inimical to their interest. Moreover, they conclude that it was no good to reduce men to machines, which can attain perfection, whereas man was placed in the zone of error. Thus, it is a complex work in which the forces of evil and good, lap and overlap, and we can see a concerted drift from confusion towards a settled stratagem of the mortal and the divine in the upcoming final part of the Trilogy: The Celestial Assimilation [Part III].
For Mauro Montachhiesi, Anand’s work is “an opera of philosophy upon the brink of apocalypse.” Through the figures of Craza (AI) and Lustus (Eros/Chaos), “Anand redefines the axis of ethical thought: away from binary, and into meta-ethical elasticity, whose implications are not only metaphysical but socio-political as well. Justice must be swift, yes—but not soulless. Perfection is not the goal of evolution. Meaning is. And meaning, Anand reminds us, is born where chaos meets conscience.”
[Dr. Shiv Sethi is a renowned author, translator and reviewer].
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