New Delhi, June 5 -- How the author of Framing South Asian Transformation (1994) was inspired to write TiME FLiES - a novel featuring a 22nd-century 'presence' in the 17th-century court of Kandy - is a story that begins with a quiet conversation in Colombo.

In 1980, I asked Arthur C. Clarke whether he had considered a computer with no material presence. Clarke, then writing the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, replied: "That's exactly what I'm writing about now." That exchange quietly shaped the creation of Celerity, the non-material presence in my new book.

Celerity is not a computer. She exists beyond the reach of quantum physics, situated instead in the "Qualon field"- the field of pure consciousness. Her existence poses the very que...