There are moments when time gently folds in on itself—when memory, presence, and a long-cherished dream meet without ceremony. This January, at Kolkata’s Boi Mela, I felt that quiet convergence. Seeing Echoes from Mesopotamia resting on the shelves—unannounced, unhurried—was a joy that asked for silence more than celebration.

This was not merely the arrival of a book. It was the distillation of a sixteen-year communion with a land that wrote the first drafts of civilisation. Mesopotamia—the space between the Tigris and the Euphrates—where cities learned to stand, words learned to endure, laws learned to bind, and myths learned to travel.

A Land That Never Leaves You

I first came to Iraq on a professional assignment, armed with contracts and calendars. But Iraq refuses to remain a workplace. It enters you—through dust-laced winds, stubborn ruins, tea poured without clocks, and prayers that echo across millennia. Over time, I learned to live with the land: listening in markets and offices, between the walls of Babylon, and in the hushed halls of the Baghdad museum where clay remembers better than we do.

This land does not merely tell stories. It remembers them.

From Whispers to Words: Distilling the Memory

Echoes from Mesopotamia is my attempt to catch those memories before they thin. The book gathers legends from Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria—not as museum pieces, but as living questions. Gods walk among humans. Identity wrestles with destiny. And the startling familiarity of these myths reminds us how little the human heart has changed.

What fascinated me most was not just the grandeur of these myths, but their uncanny familiarity.

A Bridge Between Civilisations

Echoes from Mesopotamia is my attempt to catch those memories before they thin. The book gathers legends from Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria—not as museum pieces, but as living questions. Gods walk among humans. Identity wrestles with destiny. And the startling familiarity of these myths reminds us how little the human heart has changed.

One thread in the book explores a provocative idea: that early civilisations may have been more connected than we admit. Parallels—of symbolism, social structures, and cultural motifs—invite us to look again, without dogma, with curiosity. Not to conclude, but to converse.

In that sense, the book became a bridge—between West Asia and the Indian subcontinent; between myth and memory; between scholarship and lived experience.

More Than a Book: A Tribute to Endurance

This work is not merely a retelling of ancient tales. It is a tribute.

A tribute to the unnamed voices who carried these stories across millennia—through invasions, empires, ruins, and rebirths. A tribute to a land that has suffered much, yet continues to pulse with life, dignity, and cultural depth. And a tribute to the enduring power of storytelling itself—the oldest technology humanity ever invented.

Writing this book often felt like listening more than speaking. Listening to history. Listening to place. Listening to echoes that refused to fade.

A Full-Circle Moment in Kolkata

Launching the book at Boi Mela felt right. Few places honour the written word with such affection. Watching my niece hold the book amid the fair’s joyous chaos brought my worlds together—my roots in India and my long years in the Middle East. Banking and digital transformation shaped my career; Mesopotamia gave me continuity.

Ancient myths matter now because they slow us down. They remind us that our questions—Who are we? Where did we come from? What binds us? What breaks us? — were asked long before the age of speed learned to interrupt itself.

A Dream Fulfilled, a Conversation Begun

This book is not an ending. It is the beginning of a conversation across time, cultures, and borders. If these stories carry even a trace of the wonder I felt while gathering them, the journey has already found its meaning.

I dedicate this work to the faith that steadied me—my wife, Jagrata; my son, Judhajit; my daughter-in-spirit, Tania—and to old schoolmates who reminded me that some dreams never leave us; they only wait.

My gratitude to all who helped bring these pages into being. May these echoes travel far. May they remind us that civilisation is not a straight line, but a shared memory. And may Mesopotamia—ancient, wounded, eternal—continue to speak.

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Echoes from Mesopotamia is now available on Amazon.