Prasanta Behera Blog

The Beginning of a Calling Almost a decade ago, I stumbled into the world of Paulo Coelho, beginning with The Alchemist . His words struck a chord—an elegant blend of spirituality, self-discovery, and emotion that felt both intimate and universal. One book led to another, until I had read nearly all of his works. Even today, when I find myself restless and searching for my next read, I return to Coelho—or sometimes to Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha —as if to steady myself. Among his books, The Pilgrimage left a lasting imprint. In it, Coelho recounts his walk along the Camino Francés to Santiago de Compostela, a journey of endurance, faith, and reflection. I could almost see myself there, step by step, breathing in the silence of old paths. Some time later, I watched The Way , the film where Martin Sheen walks the Camino to complete the journey his son could not. That story deepened the pull. The idea of a pilgrimage was no longer just in books or films—it began to live inside me. Since...

The Story of Zero For centuries, Western scholars believed that the invention of zero (“0”) came from the Arab world. But only in the late 20th century was its true origin traced back to ancient India—a revelation that piqued my curiosity about how the Indo numeral system spread.  This blog is not a scholarly paper. It reflects my understanding, based on readings, especially two books: 1) Finding Zero by Amir Aczel, which I read in 2023, and 2) The Golden Road by William Dalrymple in 2025. My goal for this blog was to write a simple story that I can remember.  The Finding Zero book discusses the search for early evidence of an artifact of “zero.” For a long time, a temple wall in Gwalior, India (876 CE) , held the distinction of displaying the oldest known inscriptional zero. The inscription clearly shows a '0' in the numbers "270" and "50".   The Bakhshali Manuscript (content believed by some to be from the 3rd or 4th century CE) : This ancient mathemati...