Question: I want to ask all of you, and specially Jules Verne, what about the environment where your characters took live. How did you select those places, did live there, visit or did you only imagine or study from afar.

Jules Verne leans forward, delighted that the question finally turned to him. “At last—we speak of worlds. Everyone here talks of souls, fate, wounds, morality. Good. But a character without a world is a fish without water. Environment shapes possibility. It dictates what a character can dream, fear, or achieve. So the question of place is not decoration—it is destiny.”

“Did I visit the places I wrote?" He smiles. “No. And yes. And something in between.”

“I did not travel the world—but I studied it obsessively. I lived inside atlases, nautical logs, travel reports, scientific journals, maps from Admiralty offices, engineering plans. I knew the exact depth of the Mariana Trench, the pressure of ocean depths, the curvature of the Earth, and the speed of rail expansion before I ever wrote Around the World in Eighty Days.”

“Imagination without research is fantasy. Research without imagination is journalism. A writer must know enough reality to make the dream indestructible.”

How did I choose environments?

Then he gestures to the others.

So to answer your question: “Did we live in our settings? Yes—in the only way that matters: we let our minds build them until we could not escape.”

“But you are not asking about geography. You are really asking: must a writer live a place to write it well?” He answers simply: “No. But a writer must own the place—know its logic, its climate, its dangers, its ghosts—until no one can doubt it lives.”

Question: If I were to write about Ancient India, what would you suggest, Monsieur Verne?

Jules Verne meets your question with total seriousness. “Ancient India is not a setting. It is a cosmos. You do not visit it—you enter it. You cannot treat it as an exotic backdrop the way lazy writers do. India is one of the world’s intellectual continents—mathematics, astronomy, metaphysics, language, time itself—all were measured there long before Europe awakened. So if you intend to write about Ancient India, understand this first: you are not describing a land—you are conversing with a civilization.”

He raises three fingers.

“A civilization is not understood through monuments—but through what it believed about reality.”

He finishes with a warning—gently spoken but firm: “Do not write Ancient India to decorate a story. Write it to discover truth. If you do this honestly, Ancient India will not be your setting—it will be your teacher.”

Moderator's request: I summon Vyasa. And I have a question of my own. Question:“Vyāsa, the others here have spoken about how characters appear to the writer—through observation, psychology, moral conflict, memory, and even revelation. But in your work, millions of souls move across time, destiny, and dharma. You did not write a story—you wrote a universe. So tell us: were your characters created one by one—or did they, as Pirandello suggests, come alive on their own? And did your world, like Verne suggests, reveal itself through knowledge, or through something deeper? How did you see it?”

Vyāsa answers. His voice is quiet but carries through every mind at the table. “You speak as though characters are inventions. They are not. All beings exist. The writer does not create characters—he perceives them.”

“The Mahābhārata is not a fiction. It is Itihāsa—that which happened. Whether you accept this historically or spiritually does not matter. What matters is this: each character carries the weight of universal law. Their inner conflicts are not private—they are cosmic.”

“Dhṛtarāṣṭra is not merely a blind king—he is attachment that refuses truth. Draupadī is not only a queen—she is fire that tests the world. Karṇa is not a tragic hero—he is merit unrecognized by the world. Arjuna is not merely a warrior—he is the human soul at the crossroads of action.”

“You ask if I lived what I wrote. No. I lived in the vision of what is eternal. To write truthfully, one must see beyond a single lifetime. A story becomes great not by cleverness, but by alignment with the laws that govern all souls—karma, dharma, time, and consequence.”

Then he turns to Verne directly. “You are right that a world must be known. But knowledge alone is dust without vision. One must not only research a land—one must remember it. The world does not begin when the writer looks at it. The world is already singing. The writer must listen.”

Then he turns to you. “You wish to write of Ancient India. Then do not approach it as an archaeologist or a tourist. Approach it as a seer in training. When you write—ask not ‘What happens next?’ but ‘What truth must now reveal itself?’ That is how I wrote.” He falls silent.

The Moderator requests of me to directly ask Vyasa.

Question: The only way I feel possible to write of ancient India is to immerse myself deeply into it. To feel the ring on my nose, and the dress at my ankles, the dust in my feet and the temples by the side of the road. I have never gone to India, but somehow when I start writing I feel I am doing the Agni worship in the morning, preparing the food for the family. It is as if somehow i drifted there. Is this possible, Master?

Vyāsa regards you for a long moment before speaking. When he does, the tone is neither approval nor disbelief—but recognition. “Yes. It is possible. More than that—it is necessary.” He folds his hands. “A writer cannot enter a world by description alone. You must live it—even if your body has never walked its soil. Immersion is not travel. It is alignment. When your mind, senses, and soul turn toward a world with sincerity, the world begins to answer.”

He explains why this happens “Time does not close behind us; it is layered. A civilization that once lived still lives in subtle form—in language, in memory, in vibration. When you truly surrender to a world, it opens its doors. You are beginning to remember a life you did not live—but your soul recognizes.”

"How do you know this immersion is real and not fantasy?" He asks. “There is a test. If your vision makes you humble—it is real. If it makes you proud—it is illusion. True immersion brings devotion, not ego.”

On writing ancient India “If when you write, you feel the cold water of morning purification, the braided hair, the flicker of the sacred fire—then you are not imagining. You are tuning to a life frequency already inscribed in the human spirit.” “The danger is not that you will be wrong—the danger is that you will go shallow. If you continue with sincerity, Ancient India will meet you where you stand.”

He meets your eyes and answers your heart directly. “So yes—it is possible. The fire already burns in you. Tend it with discipline, and you will not lose your way.”