An author, an unrepentant overthinker, and someone who genuinely believes stories are the best way to trick reality into revealing its secrets. By day, I've spent years immersed in the fast-paced world of technology and problem-solving, but by night (and sometimes in stolen hours in between), I found myself scribbling down ideas that refused to leave me alone. I grew up fascinated by the epic tales of mythology, the twists of crime dramas, and the dizzying "what if" scenarios that science fiction dares to ask. Instead of choosing one lane, I decided to build bridges between them — to write stories where ancient legends, modern cities, and future technologies crash into each other. Writing for me isn't just about creating entertainment; it's about chasing the questions that keep me awake at night: What does immortality really cost? Where does power hide in plain sight? What if the myths we dismiss as folklore were simply truths written in a language we've forgotten to read?
I didn't plan to be a writer. I planned to be a reader forever — the kind of person who gets lost in bookshops, stacks novels higher than they can carry, and stays up way too late because one more chapter always wins. But somewhere along the way, the voices in my head got too loud, and instead of calling a doctor, I decided to write books.
That's how The Ashvattha Protocol was born — my very first novel, a speculative thriller that asked a question I couldn't stop obsessing over: what if science finally cracked the code to life itself? The story spirals into a world where cutting-edge biotech collides with the timeless human fear of death, where ambition and ethics are constantly at war, and where the ancient quest for immortality isn't just myth anymore — it's policy.
For me, it was more than just a book. It was my love letter to science fiction, the genre that taught me to see the future not as something distant, but as a question mark staring us in the face. Writing The Ashvattha Protocol meant putting every "what if" I'd ever scribbled in the margins of my notebooks into a narrative — the what if of eternal life, the what if of playing god, the what if of science moving faster than our morality.
It became the story that set me free as a writer: bold, messy, and unapologetically curious. And once it was out in the world, I knew I wasn't just a reader anymore. I was hooked on the other side of the page.
Of course, I couldn't stop there. My next obsession pulled me deep into the world of epics and immortals, into a story that had been whispering to me since childhood. Ashvatthama: The Eternal Curse reimagines one of India's most intriguing mythological figures — the immortal warrior cursed to walk the earth forever — and asks what it means to carry that burden across centuries.
I wanted to know: what happens when a man who cannot die is forced to live through ages of violence, progress, betrayal, and change? What does immortality look like when the world around you never stops evolving, when the very myths you're part of become bedtime stories, and when technology begins to reshape humanity itself?
In the novel, Ashvatthama finds himself dropped into a modern landscape where AI, crime, and destiny collide. It's myth meets machine, curse meets code, past meets future. Writing it was like straddling two worlds — one filled with the echoes of the Mahabharata and another humming with the cold logic of algorithms.
But here's the truth: Ashvatthama is not the kind of character who likes to stay quiet once you invite him into your imagination. He's restless, relentless, larger than life, and utterly haunted by his curse. He demanded a voice in the modern world, and through him I got to explore one of my favorite questions: what does it truly mean to survive when survival itself is the curse?
But reality isn't just about myths or science; it's also about the world we live in every single day — the cities that rise higher and faster than we can comprehend, the concrete jungles that promise progress while quietly swallowing their own secrets, and the corruption that builds foundations as strong as steel. And then, of course, there are the people who dare to fight for truth in those shadows, even when the odds are stacked against them.
That became The Concrete Bloom — my dive into crime and noir, a gritty urban mystery that starts with one determined officer, one dead architect, and far too many secrets buried in concrete. It's crime fiction at its heart, yes, but also a meditation on power — how it is wielded, how it is silenced, and how it often hides in plain sight.
In writing it, I wanted to capture the pulse of a city that feels alive, almost like a character in its own right: a city that blooms with glass and steel, but roots itself in lies and rot. The officer at its center isn't chasing just one case — she's chasing the truth in a place that doesn't always want to be honest.
The Concrete Bloom gave me the chance to trade immortals and scientists for real, flawed human beings, and to explore the justice system as a battlefield where the stakes are not gods or eternal curses, but something even more fragile: trust. It's a story about silence and who benefits from it, about the weight of justice and who dares to carry it, and about the cracks in our concrete landscapes that no one wants to see until they split wide open.
Across these three very different books, my obsession is the same: I love breaking the walls between genres, bending the rules of storytelling, and asking questions that don't have easy answers. What if the myths we treat as bedtime stories were really coded warnings? What if our cities were blooming monsters of steel and corruption? What if science's greatest achievement was also humanity's greatest curse?
I don't write because I have the answers. I write because I love chasing the questions. Stories are how I make sense of the chaos around us — and hopefully, how I invite you to join me in that chaos too.
So whether you pick up The Ashvattha Protocol for a taste of science and conspiracy, Ashvatthama: The Eternal Curse for a mythological-meets-modern epic, or The Concrete Bloom for a dive into urban crime and secrets — I hope you find yourself questioning, rethinking, and maybe even seeing the world a little differently when you turn the last page.
Because in the end, that's what I believe stories are for. Not just to entertain us, but to haunt us. To make us curious. To make us wonder.
And if I've done that — even a little — then I've done my job as a storyteller.
© 2025 Nikhil Bajaj. All rights reserved.