The author was born and raised in India, where the great epics weren’t just stories — they were part of the air, the rhythm of daily life. For the first fifteen years of his life, the Mahabharata was not just a tale—it was a lens through which the world was understood. Then, life carried him across the ocean to the United States, where the next fifteen years shaped him in an entirely different language of thought, culture, and identity.

If the author were a tree, his roots would run deep into the soil of ancient Indian history, but his branches—his leaves, his fruit—have grown in the light of the Western world. Yet, even after all these years, he often feels like he belongs to neither place completely. The homeland feels distant in ways that surprise him. The West, though familiar, never quite lets him forget he came from somewhere else.

And still, he finds peace in the in-between. In the grey. Because that is where the Mahabharata lives — not in black or white, but in the aching, beautiful tension between dharma and desire, fate and choice. These stories teach him how to see the world through another's eyes, how to search for truth amid contradiction.

After years of questioning, wandering, and reflection, this book is the fruit of that inner journey — a tribute to the stories that raised him, and a bridge between two worlds he calls home.