2117 AD: An alien research on earth's ruins

Since mankind’s occupation of the earth, by beating rest of the species through his main faculty, brain, everything has changed, from wooden wheels to spaceships, Gods to just weather phenomena, except one thing, happiness. Situation is the same. In fact, modern man is far unhappy than the ancient one. Simple reason is the use of logic and science for creation and destruction at the same time. One step forward, one step backward: Life and death overlapping. Where will we go? The net result is zero. So we stand at the same place where we started from. Medical research is doing wonders to beat mortality, overcome diseases, lessen pains, and increase the quality of life. One step forward, accepted. But then the destructive face is no less on innovation. Nuclear weapons which can wipe out whole of the earth, chemical weapons, missiles, warships, guns, bullets. One step backward. You make deadliest weapons to take as many lives as possible. Then you contrive the best means to save lives through bullet proofs, bunkers, shelters, helmets, surgeries and medicines. Ease of life through modern utilities, one step forward of course. Destruction of environment, one step backward. Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. It’s simply going nowhere. It has been just hot pursuit. Ever since we surged ahead on the path of civilization, it has been always a rampant, mad rush to go ahead, at whatever cost. There has never been a civilazional pause, a hiatus, a break to ponder over, to think about the costs we have paid. A look back and around and calculation of the future. All civilizations nurtured the relentless thrust, to march on, with full force. Mind you, march on and on, the storm, the fire, these cannot go forever. Such hot-pursuit race cannot sustain itself. It has to come to an end. It’s as per the law of science. If you run forever, you will collapse. So one has to stop somewhere. Unpaused progress ends in a disaster. It just isn’t sustainable. In genetically ingrained and socially ordained hot pursuit, have we ever thought of contriving means of systemic pause and rest, for ourselves, for countries, for this planet itself? Only rest, peace, calm and love are sustainable, because these are not burning with the fiery energy. So before we continue rampantly and dive headlong into the abyss across the precipice, cannot we learn to devise civilizational pause, when this planet earth gets a holiday, for some time, its lungs getting a lease of life, its freshwater bodies getting lesser pollutants? Just like we have carbon cut quotas, cannot we have population cut quotas? It will help. It will save the earth from human ant-swarms, who will ultimately eat the environment itself that sustains them. Cannot everything be slowed down at regular intervals to save the critically exponential stats from nose-diving into deathtrap? Long before a superior, antagonistic extra-territorial life overpowers us, or a rogue planet crashes into the earth, or sun explodes, we will surely destroy ourselves long before any such eventuality. And when that happens, some alien researchers will sigh with wonderment, looking at our ruins and archaeological remains, much like we marvel at the ruins of ancient human civilizations such as Harappa, Egypt and Babylon, and think and research about the causes that brought about the downfall. 

A Dive into Freedom

The new item number is just too juicy. Voluptuous moves. Raunchy notes. Suggestive lyrics. The choreographer, the lyricist and the music director have done full justice to her curves. Everyone has had their own set of visualization of her while working on their parts in the musical number. She gyrates in half thigh-length tight gold-threaded dhoti and beaded choli. She has perfect figure, finest curves, very charming features and flawless skin. And millions gasp for breath.  

One thing goes missing in all this glamorous show. It’s her innocent laughter and child-like simplicity of mind. When she smiles, it’s a pure soft outburst of merriment untouched by any trace of malice and shrewdness. When she laughs, it also is pure like a child does when amused at a small, simple thing. But this unsophisticated self is covered up by her dazzling sex appeal. Even if it shines at all, people prefer to ignore it. They have more important things to gloat over, to quench the hunger of mind, the famed Indian hunger of opposite sex in the mind, beyond all outside taboos and evil talk of dirty acts like sex and all.

She has earned quite a bit of name in the industry. She gets interviews now and then in the mainstream media. On such occasions she is her usual unsophisticated self. However, the person on the other end seems on guard, like peeping over a fence, guarding himself from some strange reaction inside. And all the onlookers know and understand the inhibitions running inside the anchor’s head. They hardly seem to listen to her for their minds are somewhere else.

Even the skimpiest dress covering the barest minimum seems to irritate the masses. For each artwork of dance by her watched on the YouTube, they go back to the gray zone on the Internet and draw out ghosts from her past. Yes it satisfies the lust in them, those clips where they can see the whole of her. Not even a shred of clothing. They gloat over her curves, the act, the ejaculations, have theirs and come back to watch her feisty item numbers.

The ink of her past appears too dense. More than the density of the ink, people seem to just hold onto it. They simply don’t want to forego of the image. It gratifies the most overpowering sense, sex. Her item numbers just fan the fire even more.  

It has been a massive effort: the journey from hard porn to soft porn.

The roles she gets, apart from the item numbers, involve sex, glamour, intrigues and extramarital affairs: the sociable, bridgeable sexuality unlike the naked rampancy of outright naked game.

She knows hers is a humongous task. The road from being a porn star to a so called normal film star is riddled with countless obstacles. Sexual zealots fire bullets from both sides. She belongs to the lust in their ever-greedy minds, so she just cannot escape like this. They have to hunt her down.

Only she knows the amount of effort she has put in moving from full porn to semi porn. It is like traversing poles at the opposite ends. From being a naked stone in full public glare, you walk down as they run after you, and you struggle to cover yourself with normal human sensitivities of respect and being treated like anyone around. People somehow resent it, throw jibes and try their best to keep their goods to gratify their lust.

She has to dilute the dark ink of the past. Wipe it altogether and write a new identity, to feel normal like any other star in the industry. From porn to semi porn. She wants to go further. She is an artist. She is working on her acting skills. She wants the normal roles like any other actress around.  But she cannot enter each and every brain to wipe the past there, allowing them to see her present and appreciate her art. The directors, who approach her, have ready-made, predetermined formula of a feisty woman, the woman for whom men fall, creating ripples around, of sex, murder, extramarital and scores of lusty intrigues.

There are trolls as well, the social media crusaders, who yank reputations to shreds, pour their boiling scorn and burn the images from safe heavens. There are abuses, lewd remarks, pasted links of her online porn clips, gross invitations and still more. She no longer takes then head on. She simply blocks them. But the words haunt her for long hours during nights when she is practicing acting skills.

With the big, bossy judgmental world buzzing around, she sometimes gets judgmental on herself. Finds herself at fault for getting into the porn industry to begin with. But wasn’t that the launch-pad for crossing the jarring atmospherics of anonymity, escaping her adolescent nightmare of just getting sold by life without leaving any mark, and that too with such flawless skin, exotic features and dreamy contours?

The art of sex! It was a wild river, toppling the mountains and their biggest boulders. Ruthless. Like it will never stop. But beyond the fury, at the end of falling over a huge cliff face, in the slow-swirling waters of after-fall majesty, the man lying sprawled, spent under her, she laughs so innocently, with such unassuming vivacity that it instantly changes her persona from manhood slayer to a simple vulnerable girl. Even in her movies now one can see that innocent trill, like a little bell around the neck of a mountain sheep. A little jaunt on the green slope and the whiffs of tinkling carried by gentle air down the valley.

This little insignia of her vulnerability, this tiny pause in the journey of the stormy, heaving waves is missed by almost all the spectators. Almost half of the men who constitute the audience of her present movies have masturbated some time or the other watching the porn clips involving her as the temptress sucking away all lust from the planet. They own her in that part of their brain. The want the sensation to remain stuck in their groins. They fight to stop it from sneaking into the aesthetic corridors of art and beauty. The image, the customary stimulation is too much, too strong. It flashes in their minds as they watch her in movies now. They expect the same gratification. They look at something else, the character, and a different movie is playing in their minds. The more she tries to prove her acting credentials, the more they delve deeper into the Internet to grab handfuls of lusty morsels to satisfy their hunger.

With hard porn blazing in their minds, they are as much as comfortable till her roles are on the margin of soft-porn.

She is in the office of a famous director. She has the word that he is finalizing the cast for his upcoming potboiler. For the last two months she has been working on her acting skills with a famous acting school.

“Well, it will be too revolutionary to put you in the cast. The role is too, too….,” he hesitates.

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. She can literally feel what is he thinking about at that time. The magnetic force of her past is too strong for her to completely escape out of its orbit.

“The role is too mainstream for you,” he says firmly and winks as if to convince himself of his logic.

“I have been working very hard for this role. Please take an audition, of any duration, of whatever intensity required for the character,” she tries to stay normal.

“Oh, audition. You know it’s more about suitability for the character. You know, all actors have certain affinity for the role they are most suitable,” he is driving it hard.

“But it’s not fair. I deserve a chance to be tested. I, I…,” her determination is melting, the typecast of her past is too strong.

“Why work so hard to bruise your beautiful skin on a path that is new to you. By doing the kind of roles that you have done so far, you have earned name, fame and money. You rule their hearts like none of the actresses around,” he laughs and looks lividly.

“But, you know…,” he cuts her mid sentence.

“Ok, you can spread more pleasure than you think. Let’s have an audition,” he leans back in his chair and his eyes bore into her bosom.

“You know it’s a huge budget film. A make or break for many. It’s not that easy as you think,” he knits his brows and appears damn serious.

“Yaa I understand. But at least accept me as one of the competitors. I can prove myself. Hope you watched my last movie,” she sits erect in her chair like a thorough professional.

He doesn’t remember anything except the feisty dance on a raunchy number. Her curves swirl around in his imagination. He has closed his eyes and takes his memory still further. Away to the fantasy world of naked, unprohibited revelry. He recalls the minutest details of her anatomy. The shade of pubic hair, the genitalia, like so many others, still different, her rampant foray into sucking out all pleasure and spit triumphantly, and that innocent trill of laughter.

She is surprised, watching him with eyes closed for a long pause. She breaks the reverie.

“Sir, you know…,” she draws him out of that other world.

“Hmmm!” he appears a bit irritated. “You know it will be too revolutionary,” his brow-lines are drawn taught.

She doesn’t say anything. He is in his fifties. A strong man. He gets up to take out a file from the rack by the wall. He is aroused. She can see it. It’s protruding. He doesn’t want to hide it even, as if wanting to convey the message. She feels insecure, even sad and looks resignedly. On an instinct she adjusts her knee-length skirt as if to protect her.

He gets back to his chair. He is more relaxed now, possibly knowing that his arousal has been seen.

“You know it’s a fight. This world of actors and actresses. Specially for big banner movies. It requires talent, skills, luck as well, connections, image and even personal history,” he stops for her to absorb the bitter truth.

“You know ambitious young actresses go to any length to grab the top spot. And of course there are gentlemen who welcome such dedication,” he smiles, staring deep into her bluish brown eyes.

“Well. I, I am ready for …audition,” she mumbles.

“Then go for the audition,” he stands up.

He has already unzipped himself and the audition phallus is out. It’s an open invitation. A simple give and take. A short audition and the role for her.

He seems helpless. He is shivering a bit out of sheer excitement and the raw adventure. He has transposed the dream onto the plain of reality. It’s like grafting himself as the male character in all those plays of naked flesh.

Just the mere sight of it fills her mouth with the typical taste of it. She has done it many times in the past, with such gripping greed and madness that it felt like she was out there to drain all masculinity of its coffers of thirst forever.

He is shaking and imploring her to drain him out of his misery, of his frustration born of unquenchable thirst.

“Come on! After this there is no stopping for you. You will choose your roles,” he is gasping for breath.

There is a chance for her to be an actress, a real actress like anyone around. It’s tempting. She is holding the armrests tightly. But something holds her back. She has been working too hard, late into the nights to push herself further to come out of this soft-porn mould. And the deal seems like going back again into the past to redeem future.

She has a struggle ahead she knows it. She is determined to face it. She is not ready to go into the future with the life-support of the past she is cutting from her life. It seems unjustified, even unethical to both the past and the future.

She gets up and turns around the table to approach him. He is on the verge of fainting, with all those wildest fancies just about to clutch him into heavens of ecstasy. He feels her touch on the protruding phallus of his life-long hunger. Helpless he surrenders and closes his eyes.

He wakes up to the taut sound of his trousers’ zip. She has safely put his strayed self into the safety of his pants and closed the doors on it. He cannot believe it.

“Do you even know what are you doing! It’s over for you!” he flies into a blinding rage.

“Yes sir, this project might be over. But not all is lost for me. I have a struggle ahead and would prefer to work over months, even years, instead of taking five-minute short-cuts to reach there. That will take me back to where I started from,” she is very calm, and looking at him with unoffended eyes.  

She comes forward again and shakes his hand very politely and professionally and backs away. With even more politeness she closes the door behind her. There are tears of pride in her eyes as she crosses the floor. And a new wave of determination pervades her beautiful curves.

The undying flame of love

Many, many years ago, a sage was meditating on a Himalayan peak. Majestic dales and solitary vales sprawled around were all aglow with the divine streak.

Though the birds chirped songs, and rain poured down in throngs, he was unmovable, lost in a deep trance.

In winters, icy cold storms blew and snow around and over him was all aglow. His soul but was safe somewhere in the cosy warmth of transcendental realisation.

In autumn, wind-fallen leaves sailed down with slumberous tumble, and ripe fruits fell proudly, adventurously for a juicy, pleasant crumble. He still was somewhere else when the nature opened these marvellous jewels from her treasure trove.

In spring, wild flowers fully unfurled their fragrance and smile, and honey-bees engaged in dawn to dusk toil. He but was unmoved and transported into a state where the ecstasies of natural bounties don’t mean anything anymore.

Summer’s warm days sprayed desultory, eerie uneasiness around, and cool nights proudly embraced this son with his soul heaven-bound. Still it didn’t matter. He was undisturbed and was silently moving on his meditative path.

Once it was a full moon autumn night. A fairy was flying amid milky delight. A perfect calmness pervaded the solitary vales. Everything was asleep, bathed in the softest fluffy shades of the white. The fairy flew low over the peaks glowing under the moonlight. The seer was lost in his trance in front of his cave, the beauty of nature around meaningless to him.

She saw him and hovered around the sanctimonious air of his sagehood. A small, harmless mischief rustled in her young, innocent heart. She circled in the air above him. Her laughter touched the milky sea around him and created soft ripples. Her unbelievably soft dress rustled in the gentle breeze born of her circles. It but did not have any effect on him. He was engrossed too deep in the cosmic balance beyond the sensory contradictions and dualities. The more she looked, the more was the urge in her to bring him back to the beauty of this world, to fetch him from the deep ocean where his soul had dived.

His exquisitely masculine physique and persona created tempted sparks on her magic trick. She tried all juicily leering feminine tricks. But her desire-lorn swirls in the air failed to move him even a bit. Helplessly she descended on the earth. There were almost tears of hopelessness in her eyes. She sat in front of him with those rose-red lips pursed in a heart-breaking frown.

Her nymphatic eyes were lost in his handsome, bearded, sculptural face. It was mesmerizing. There was not a single worldly trace on his face. She herself was caught in a trance and lost the sense of time and the laws of the fairyland. The night sped away as if in a jiffy.

The day rose. The sun arrived with full earthly delight. There was terror in her eyes. The hope to return to her realm died. She had broken the law of her land by not returning on the same night after the brief terrestrial sojourn. The realisation crashed against her soft self like a thunderbolt. Her utmost sensuous bare shoulders heaved under the tremors of this unpardonable fault. A cry involuntarily tore through her slender throat. And then it was a still bigger violation.

His serenely flowing meditative phase met this sinful, full-stopping dot. His communion with the divinity was broken. His long-closed eyes opened. The world of his penance lay scattered. His fiercely burning eyes stared at the petalous flower in sobs and sighs. Her large flooded eyes pleaded for mercy. But the fire in his unforgiving eyes was unforgiving and cursing.

The fabric of his serenity was torn. The sage thundered, “You proud, vain woman of egoistic beauty, become an ugly bush of thorns!”

Mowed down by the spell of his cursing energy, an ugly bush stood in place of that angelic beauty. All shaken and ravaged he left the place. A thorny branch, meanwhile, got entangled in his loin cloth as if for meek, pleading forgiveness and brace. He but scornfully jerked it apart and headed to some other place for a new start.

Time then took to its heels on swift horses. The seasons changed. The spring’s colourful patterns were rearranged. The summer’s warm kisses melted the snows. The autumn’s harvest uncomplainingly fell to the air’s chiding blows. The winter’s snowy blanket covered the peaks. And rains lashed down in stormy freaks. This pleasant wavering of nature, however, couldn’t shake the sage from the meditative maze. Faraway down the hills, the accursed bush was shrouded in thorny haze. It struggled to sprout fruits and flowers. But even cursing has a testing time against soft, innocent glow of purity. How can something having a fairy core remain ugly and thorny for too long? Her pure soul entombed in that thorny shrine prayed for penance. And see, a flower of her fruits sprouts forth!

A flower blossomed among the thorns. So beautiful! Among the thorns and deadly pale brown branches, it appeared juxtaposed, like it had dropped from the heaven and got stuck there. It was the day when the enlightened sage arrived from the north. Contented with his cosmic realisation, he came down the beautiful dale. As he passed the bush, his purified soul sensed the thorny shrub’s plaintive wail. His feet disobeyed him and he couldn’t move. The lone flower among the thorns fell at his feet in holy-most obeisance and greet. He picked it up and was lost in its fragrance.

The thorn was ugly. The flower so beautiful and fragrant! What contradiction! Flowery heaven and thorny hell together! The latter born of his cursing condemnation; the flower born of the beauty behind the thorny bars. It was a jolting earthly realisation. Hadn’t he broken the beautifully set laws? Torrents of repentance gushed through him. He bid penance at the altar for a long time. His repenting self set around a reformative shrine. His soul drenched in painful chime. He braced the thorns with the love and affection purest of the pure. It gave him bleeding fingers so many times. He caressed and cared for it like it was the beautiful most flowery shrub. He was practicing his penance now, of love, of surrender, of repentance.

When his soul had been salvaged of the sin, nobody could bet against her for a win. There she blossomed in front of him. Beauty, charm and grace filled to the brim. Her smile was forgetting and forgiving. It was the beacon of her penance, of love, of beauty. Inside the stony walls of his heart, a new luminosity was now thriving. The sage embraced her. She, who had been separated from her loved ones, got the earthling she had fallen for. Happiness, bliss and calm opened a new door to the start of a fresh cycle of life, love and humanity.

All but the sage had been extinguished by the cataclysm. The lone and forlorn survivor he had been striking at the doors of heaven with his endless questions. Now there was no more pursuit. The endless had manifested in a small sip of love. Now they lived as a man and a woman. New hopes, aspirations and offsprings began to thrive.

Thus were sown the seeds of another spell and cycle of life, of creation. Their unchecked love in those flowery vales left countless exotic trails. Gurgling brooks gave company to her primordially sensuous laughter. His instinct’s procreating sprouts mingled in the mirthful waters of her receptiveness.

A drop of love in the poisonous pond

Many, many full moons ago, there was a beautiful princess in a tiny paradisaical hill state. As the nature’s blooms touched new peaks, her beauty still raced ahead more to scale newest charms. The nature spread across the far-flung wild trails sang the songs of her majestic beauty. Cool gusts of pure breeze did its duty to spread the charming tales of her beauty. For miles and miles her fame measured distances in just arm-lengths. 

There was a handsome prince in a kingdom which was at war with the princess’s state. The effusive tales of her beauty seeped into his thoughts, imagination and dreams. A sweet pining lynched him. Looking at the state of affairs between the two kingdoms, it was futile to nurture such dreams. But he was helpless. Days became boring and nights turned endless. It was just impossible to drive her out of his heart.

The much famed face was haunting him every moment, teasing him, daring him for bravado. Then unable to take it anymore, he untethered his horse and set out in pursuit of his destiny. It was a dark stormy night. Owls were screeching ominously. Wind was warning of risk. And the darkness was daunting. He appeared a futile chaser running after a mirage in a tragic race. He cut all fears and darkness with the steely point of his determination and went full gallop into the corridors of uncertainty.

Untamed wind came to subdue his young heart, and spanked his brave, soldierly chest. But he moved without taking any rest. His heart was at rest only in the pursuit. If he stopped for some time, his soul felt unbearable, became restless, forcing him to move with more speed and sturdier determination.

After a month-long suffering in the ravines, he reached where the much acclaimed star of her beauty shone. There was a risk of getting recognised, caught and, surely, hanged. He wandered in her kingdom in impersonation. The very air felt so antagonistic, but the pull of her fabled beauty kept him in pursuit. The myth of her beauty came spooling out of every mouth here and there. There were very few who had actually seen the precious jewel of the kingdom. The rest had their boundless imagination and endless stories to satisfy their curiosity.

His eyes were aching to have a sight of her, at any cost, even at the cost of his life. His suffering, pining heart was laden with cold sighs. He had been trained well in all the arts of war and disguise. He was taking out every plan from his well trained mind and skills to meet his goal of seeing her. He was just waiting for a chance to get the shower of her bloom to drive away his heart’s gloom. In his frantic search, he grabbed a chance at last.

It was a full moon night. The moon was lit at its fairest bright. The princess came out for a boat ride in the marvellously calm lake. He stealthily waited in the shoreline foliage. His chest shook with a thunderous heart-quake. Like desert sand waiting for rain drops for years, he lay in wait. The moment seemed so near, and yet impossibly far. Each passing moment appeared like years.

He was just above the princess’s safe, secret bathing marble platform. The white floor exotically gleamed. The stage welcomed the royal lady with awed welcome. His heart achingly struggled as her boat arrived. Her maidens were giggling and teasing her for her beauty. He held his hand over his broad chest as if to calm down his thumping heart, lest it exploded to make a big sound.

The paragon of beauty was adorned with filigreed silky finery. In silent majesty she put her adorable feet on the gleaming, cool platform by the waterside. Waves rippled through him with a coquettish chide. Her hallowed figure distinctly glowed over the group of helping ladies. His thoughts stopped. His world froze. And time got stuck up in a trap. It was too overpowering for the senses to take it in a moment. He turned a stone, mesmerized by her beauty. The night was so tranquil, affable and disarming that she decided to take a bath. So her finery no longer covered her exquisitely carved curves. And the earth stopped spinning on its axis.      

The naked fairy jammed his nerves. There was statuesque glow of marble on her milky skin. Even moonlight appeared bathing along the curves of her extremely feminine body. A real life sculpture of utmost symmetry and fathomless sensuality! The moon-rays deflected off her curves and panting, pining reached his eyes. Every moment her moon-sculpted body acquired new vistas and highs. Her flowing tresses over her long, slender back lustily shook to her head’s gentle gyrations.

Her facial features were a bit lost in the milky mystique of the moonlight. But he heard the words spoken with mythic softness. He was but dying with the urge to see the face of the fabled carrier of the unparalleled beauty. So he came closer to fulfil his young heart’s only aim in the whole world. How can you stop a sunflower from turning to the sun? Nature suffuses our selves, our beings with certain helplessness. And such pining helplessness paves the way for what we make of our lives. They decide the path we take. They set up the course of our destiny.

No flight lasts forever. Gravity pulls us down onto the plain of reality. He was noticed by the female arm-guards. Their well-toned, almost masculine, arms tossed into action and grabbed the sword hilts. Surrounded by trained female warriors he still had a decent chance of escape through a fight. But how could he put a blot on this night by getting into a bloody scuffle with her guards? No, he was in no mood to go to war, even if it meant risking his life. The female armed guards advanced and surrounded him. The prince was thus caught. The scandalous air of the happening filled up the moonlit panorama.  

The next sun rose with its curious, perplexed rays, eager to see the consequences of blind love. The tale of his reckless misadventure was doing the rounds. People were offended, more so because he was the enemy’s son. The king’s throne literally shook with the young prince’s impudence and mindless transgression. He was seething with anger.

Revenge, revenge shouted the petrified air. It was the enemy’s unforgivable crime. The king sentenced the enemy prince to death at his youth’s prime. However, even when blinded by the scornful blasts of rage and revenge, kingdoms have their own laws, the inviolable laws that hold their bastion even in the face of almost unpardonable sins. Well, that is the thinnest line dividing the domain of mankind from that of animals.

The prince’s royal blood deserved the fulfilment of a last wish before his death. When they brought him out for the public execution, the public was jubilant. How dare he enter into the private place of their fairy like princess!? He came out with the regal confidence of a prince. His face still carried the finest smile possible on a handsome face. When the last wish was asked, as the law demanded, he just asked the permission to see her face in full light of the blazing sun, no cover, no veil, just her much-fabled face. He simply requested an eye-full brace of her magical features.

God, why thou create such bewitching creatures? During his final moments before death he was led to the courtyard below her ornate, marbled balcony. He stood there like a victorious soldier. His head held high, his chained hands placed on both sides of his slim waist, his broad shoulders drawn firmly and chest puffed up with the pride of a journey completed.

The star of countless eyes was then led onto the balcony. She beat the sun in the dazzle of her finery. It was the finest creation of God he had ever seen. A smile curved from the corners of his lips and he took a deep breath as if to soak the moment till eternity. Her sad eyes looked down at him without any hate and malice. It was almost impossible to be otherwise with that beauty. The prince too was not less on the scale of looks. On his manly features the smile lurked with such ease as if it won’t be dislodged even by the gravest threat of getting killed.

The princess knew that her face had been the bait, which would soon seal this life’s fate. She looked deeply into his eyes and tears welled up in those almond cups of beauty and love. He looked at her with such unmoving intensity as to take a deep, deep imprint of her beauty on his soul, where no dagger would reach.

She was taken away. And he was led to the public square for beheading. His every step told the tale of a victory.

A sea of sorrow surged painfully through the princess’s delicate self. She fell at her father’s feet with an utmost painful entreat. If he, the prince of an enemy state, was ready to die for the cause of just a look at her face, she was capable of going a step further with her feminine bravery to save a life, an admirer, a brave man, a man having a heart full of love. It boosted her guts. She was ready to go to any length to save him.

“Father, it is not his fault, but the result of my well-meant kiss! He is not a stranger. Your daughter secretly tied the knot with him. If you kill him, sorrows and sufferings will cross ocean’s brim. A father would widow his daughter. For ages known will be this slaughter! And if you still send him to gallows, another death surely follows!” she was crying profusely and fell at her father’s feet.

The King loved his daughter more than his own life. He didn’t remember her tears through her lifetime, for he had always undone any cause which may bring tears to her beautiful eyes. How could he let this darling flower wither away? Thus, smiled on many fates a new ray!

A drop of love transformed the pools of poisonous, hateful waters. It turned a fountain of brotherhood, non-violence and cooperation. They were ceremoniously married. The decades-old animosity was buried. What a humane outcome of her wise, petalous whiff of courage! For the newlyweds a marital bliss, and for the two states a friendly kiss!

Long live love! The only substance that can consume the endless fire of hate!

Here is the end; here is the beginning

Mix the contradictions. Make a paste. Mix the duality. Grind it well. And you get nothing in the so called ‘everything’. Is there any hard and fast line between the so called two ends of our perception? Is ‘black’ only ‘black’? Is ‘white’ only ‘white’? No. They seep into each other and define each other, apparently, relatively. Dark is not just ‘dark’. And light is not just ‘light’. Dark is only ‘less light’. And light is just ‘less dark’. Duality sustains on our sense of ‘ego’. It turns our consciousness into self-consciousness. Is there any pure, unadulterated ‘pleasure’? No. Pleasure is a state of having lesser pain. Pleasure has a mild dose of pain in it. Always. Find out a person who has no trace of pain in him. Is there any condition of just having ‘pain’? No. Pain is just having lesser degree of ‘pleasure’. Pleasure carries pain in it, and pain carries pleasure in it. Our ego stretches the point of reality in two directions for suitable duality, of contradictions. Imagine ‘twilight’ when day’s rising light mixes with the night’s vanishing darkness. The balance. The melting of duality. Is there any state of something being perfectly ‘cold’ or perfectly ‘hot’? No. Cold is just lesser hot. And hot is just lesser cold. The reality just gives the illusion of apparently getting stretched in opposite directions. It’s the see-saw battle. We look this way, then we turn to the other side. By subduing the element of ‘self’ from ‘consciousness’ one can get a balanced vision. Then the funny mirage of seeing two avatars of the same thing becomes visible. The two things are inseparable, and are just our conveniently defined two points on the plain of reality. Death is not just death in itself. It is the beginning of life, of birth. Birth is not just birth. It is the beginning of death. Same is the apparent duality of creation and destruction. They don’t exist separately. For an event and happening to occur, there has to be a balance between the two. Like human body survives on the principle of the balance between creation and destruction. New cells are continuously being created and old ones are dying. The circle. It holds the key to the mystery. The reality has loops of the so called dualities going side by side, at all points, at all points. The counterweights. The balance. Going on and on in loops. The ever-expanding universe and the ever-dying universe. In loops. In circles. At countless points. Forever. Explosions and implosions. Blasts and suction. Circular loops. Creation and destruction. Creation and destruction. On and on. In circles. Expansion and suction. Going from nowhere to nowhere. And passing through the point where you happen to read it presently.