Ashoka's Ninth Mandala: A Secret Buried in Empire

In 2026 Kolkata, a cremation pyre hides a murder. Karthik Bose, a tenacious 32-year-old journalist, uncovers a spiral burn mark-the Ashokan brand-on his grandfather Arvind's wrist, a retired RAW agent silenced by secrets. A cryptic journal, etched with Sanskrit ciphers and maps to a 1947 Yangon safehouse, propels Karthik into a deadly chase for Mandala IX, a fabled relic of Emperor Ashoka's Nine Unknown Men, guarding knowledge too perilous for the world. This Ninth Mandala, a recursive model predicting societal collapse, pulses beneath India's bloodiest riots, wielded by the shadowy Meridian Circle-a cabal of spies, corporates, and traitors, including Karthik's uncle Vikram.
From monsoon-drenched ghats to Odisha's jungles, Delhi's power corridors to the Nicobar Trench's eerie signal, Karthik battles drones, snipers, and a scarred killer, unraveling Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's lost quest and India's suppressed history. As spirals-graffiti, chants, global X posts-spread, a new cycle, Mandala X, emerges, threatening time itself. In a land where truth is a weapon, Karthik must guard it-or burn in its spiral.