Extraordinary Short Story Writing

Extraordinary Short Story Writing

Dhammapada Quotations

Tags

Buddha, Buddhist, Dhammapada Quotations, Theravada

 

The Dhammapada Quotes
Famous The Dhammapada Quotations
The Dhammapada is a versified Buddhist scripture traditionally ascribed to the Buddha himself. It is one of the best-known texts from the Theravada canon.
A man who has learnt little grows old like an ox: his flesh grows, but his knowledge does not grow. All that we are is made up of our thoughts; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with a pure thought, happiness will follow him, like a shadow that never leaves him. As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, so wise men falter not amidst blame or praise . As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion breaks through an unreflecting mind . Better than power over all the earth, better than going to heaven and better than dominion over the worlds is the joy of the man who enters the river of life that leads to Non-Being. By rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control the wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm. Do not speak harshly to any one those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way . Angry speech is painful blows for blows will touch thee. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time hatred ceases by love – this is an old rule . He who formerly was reckless and afterwards became sober brightens up this world like the moon when freed from clouds. Health is the greatest gift, contentedness the best riches . Health is the greatest possession . Contentment is the greatest treasure . Confidence is the greatest friend . Non-being is the greatest joy . If a man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greater of conquerors. If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind, misery follows, as the cart follows the horse.. . If one speaks or acts with a pure mind,happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source . In the body restraint is good; good is restraint in speech; in thought restraint is good: good is restraint in all things . It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in, and flighty, rushing wheresoever it listeth: a tamed mind brings blessings. Like a beautiful flower, full of colour but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly. Men who have not observed discipline, and have not gained treasure in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish . One’s own self conquered is better than all other people . Speak the truth, do not yield to anger give, if thou art asked for little by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods. The faults of others are easily perceived, but those of oneself are difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour?s faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides as a cheat hides the false dice from the gamester. The fool who knows his foolishness is wise so far, at least; but a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed. There is no fire like passion; there is no shark like hatred; there is no snare like folly; there is no torrent like greed . There never was, there never will be, a man who is always praised, or a man who is always blamed. Travel only with thy equals or thy betters if there are none, travel alone. Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.

COMMONWEALTH SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2012

Fight or Flee

By Surangi Tissera.

Chintha and Manori were seated in the spacious hall of the Road Moto Vehicle office or known as RMV; with hundreds of other people from all walks of life. They all are anticipating this one cause of getting their Moto-vehicle driving license. It is a very noisy hall. Small talks of each ones have made the sound of thundering. Sometimes sounds are getting high pitched when they scold for the authorities for taking long to release their permits.

The hall had two fully erected walls; one side is opened to the outside garden and the opposite side had two glass covered doors which are opened to the adjacent office building. Through the glass doors, one can see peons clad with blue uniforms walking here and there with stacks of papers on their hands. The air, in the hall is getting warmer due to the asbestoses sheet shelter without a sealing. The two fans, hanging from the bare roof are rotating in full speed. But it couldn’t help to cool the environment inside the hall; as it is near the noon of this tropical summer day.

Except some, all of them were in the ripe of their youth. Also few school boys with their school uniforms were seen among the crowd too. Most of the men have applied for heavy vehicle category and they are planning to go Middle East countries in search of jobs as drivers. Their faces show the weary of searching jobs and their cloths reveal the poorness and village looks. On the other hand all most all ladies were in posh looks and wearing latest fashioned cloths. They were talking in English and showing off with their luxury mobile phones and accessories. They must be the lucky people who are going to drive their own vehicles.

Chintha and Manori were sharing some milk cookies cursing for the delay. It is almost their lunch time at office. They both work in an UK based BPO company as software engineers. Over the past six months they were chatting and most of the time dreaming about what they will do with the driving license.

The unmarried girl, Chintha asked her friend Manori who is newly married and the husband is working in abroad.

“You know what? Yesterday I drove our family car a bit.”

“How was it? I bet it is not easy as driving the mini-car we drove today for this test”, Manori interrupted while taking another milk cookie out of the pack.

“Who said it’s easy. It is Terrible!” they both laughed in unison to the Chintha’s remark and she continued. ”We can’t drive those old modeled huge vehicles in these narrow roads full of daredevil three wheelers”, Manori nodded in agreement.

“We better try to buy those mini model auto geared cars. But they cost a hell of lot of money, you know”, Manori continued her munching.

Chintha looks around and see the middle aged woman two rows back to them.

“Do you see that lady in the corner with heavy make-ups? She is an international school teacher“, she whispered to Manori’s ear pointing to the back rows.

“How do you know?” Manori asked surprisingly.

“Oh, she was in the same vehicle where I was. In fact she went just before me in taking the practical test. I heard the driving learners’ school representatives were talking about her. They were so much upset as they couldn’t get bribery from her like they took from us”, Chintha went on.

“She is either smart or too foolish, I guess”, Manori interrupted her friend.

“No, you silly, she has said the examiner who is going to conduct the test is one of the parent of her class student and she personally knows the examiner and passing the test is not an issue”, Chintha went on.

“There you go… she is smart, we could have also told some kind of story to Learners’ school representatives. Who knows whether she is personally know the examiner or not”, Manori heaved a sigh.

“Do you think it’s that easy to get away from them? They are thug like people. Even all those examiners take bribes and keep close connections with them”, Chintha warned.

“Here everything is corrupted and without a bribery or close connection nothing is possible”, Manori nodded in agreement to the Chintha’s statement.

For a minute or two they both said nothing and went on eating the milk cookies.

Manori broke the silence.

“Did you hear the news about Yasanghi?”

“O yes about her resignation after the marriage. That’s a bit old one. Isn’t it?” Chintha went on while searching for the water bottle inside her handbag.

“I bet you haven’t heard about the migration. Her husband has got the PR in Australia”, Manori said moving her chin bit upper and rolling the left corner of her mouth proudly for knowing the latest news which her friend doesn’t.

“How come I haven’t heard it first? Even she came to me to write her resignation letter”, Chintha said in displeasure pouting here lower lip on the upper.

“It’s true she is not clever in documentation”, Manori when on agreeing to her friend. ”She came to our room yesterday afternoon when you had left from office, to get help in writing another letter. She was looking for you. Since you were gone and she was in rush, she asked help from me. You know I am not as good as you in writing. But I managed to write her a letter requesting a service letter”, with that Manori put her hand in to biscuit pack only to find it’s empty.

“But service letters are normally given when you give your request for it in the resignation letter along. I think she has already got one”, Chintha went on still in doubt.

“Yea… she got one yesterday afternoon. But the letter given is not in details. She had to request for a detailed service letter. She needs it because she must find a job in Australia even before she migrates to that country. You know on those countries everyone need to earn their bread and butter themselves. Specially people migrating from third world countries have to do several jobs at once to meet their both ends. One of my cousins who went there for higher studies said he works whenever he gets free times from his studies.  And he told me most of the Sri Lankans living there work around the clock. You know unlike here, day time and night time works are not treated differently”, Manori said wisely.

“But people migrate to developed countries to have a better living, right? What is the use if they have to keep on working around the clock? Here we can manage with one job”, Chintha went on.

“There is a different, Chintha, They earn and pay government taxes, which in return give them better living standard. It is at the beginning one has to work hard to establish the life in an alien country, afterward it is much easy. Now compare that to here. Of course we do one job and manage our lives. But till we die what we all do other than managing our things with barely sufficient salary. We pay tax and in return what we get? We have to pay higher prices for everything. We earn in Rupees but required to spend in Dollars”, Manori said with quick paced anguish tone.

“There is a point in your talk. If we also given the chance to work more than one job and earn our living we also can reach to that living standard.  But the structure needs to be created first to change the attitude. Even education structure needs to be change to suite the current job opportunities available. Remember how difficult it was to find qualified people to work in night shift in that latest USA project at office?”, Chintha reminded.

“Correct. That is why people go to other developed countries even in illegal ways. I think in this year along more than thousand people were caught trying to migrate to Australia in fishing boats”, Manori looked at her wrist-watch and knew it an hour passed her normal lunch time.

“Look Chintha, I think the officers are also taken their lunch breaks. Shall we also go to the canteen and take our lunch”, Manori suggested as the hunger is unbearable to her.

“I too feel feeble. Those cookies can’t help since I took the breakfast very early today morning to arrive on time to the test. But you see they instructed us to wait here. If they call our names while we were away then that will be a mess again”, Chintha reminded.

“I saw some of the candidates go out and come. We should have the right to eat our lunch. They can’t deprive that. This is intolerable. Come on. It won’t take more than ten minutes”, Manori pressed her friend in agreeing to her. Chintha agreed.

“O.k. then let’s go quickly”, Chintha stood from her seat.

The canteen is not noisy like the waiting hall and it is more spacious and air conditioned.  A well known restaurant chain is there to serve food and it is maintained in excellence conditions. As quality is high so does the price of the food. The prices are nearly three to four times higher than the normal price.

At first the two friends thought of eating rice and curry. But the thought didn’t last more than ten seconds when they saw the prices. They had quick chat and decided to quench their hunger by fish-buns and milk packets for the moment and to take late lunch in a Tamil Vegetarian restaurants known as ‘Syvar Kade’ in roadside. Manori paid for buns while Chintha bought milk packets.

When Chintha came to her seat in the table Manori had already started eating. Chintha knows well about her friend’s inability to wait when food served. Therefore no issues of table etiquette took place. She put one of the milk packs she brought to Manori’s side of the table and started to eat her bun. By then Manori has eaten half of her bun and telling the food is so tasty comparative to other places.

“It should be high taste than the outside shops like the price of it. No wonder these examiners had to take unsolicited fees from us to eat their daily meals from this star hotel”, Chintha said looking seriously and chuckled at the end.

Manori winked while eating the last portion of the bun.

“If we go to one of the roadside ‘Syvar Kade’ we could have eaten a full meal with desert to this cost”, Manori said while sipping her milk packet.

They both finished their quick snack and rush to the waiting hall. Still candidates are waiting in that scorching place for authorities to release their driving licenses.

The both wanted to go to the wash room too. So as the time permits they decided to take leave again. There were two rows outside the washrooms, one for males and the other one for females.

They both stood in the female row and were able to reach to the front in a few minutes time. It was then that they understood they have to pay first in order to go to these toilets. Pay money before going to the toilet isn’t a new concept in some areas of the world. But these two girls haven’t experienced it anywhere before and they both were laughing about it afterward on their return to the seats in the waiting hall.

After another impatient ten minutes all of the examiners who conducted the practical tests that morning came with the bundles of temporary permit letters. The hall went silence at once. In a split second again the noise started at full length. But there was a difference. Now the examiners all at once started to call the candidates name to handover the letters. They had to repeat the same candidate name several time as the audience couldn’t grasp what they are telling. But then without any further instructions candidates knew how to cope with the situation. Individual candidates started to move toward each examiner seated location by identifying their correct examiner. Since Manori and Chintha were belong to two different Examiners they too also parted from each other.

Now the next hurdle, they have to be in all ears and stay standing with the crowd.

“Mudiyanselage Jagath Bandara”, Examiner let a loud cry by holding the letter. From the back of the crowd where Chintha stand, emerged a skinny, brownish man with red eyes. When he walked up to the examiner’s table, he is given a paper to sign by the examiner. Then only he found out he doesn’t own a pen. Examiner frowns and looked at him in a split second before starting to scold in high pitch.

“So you came without a pen ha!”, Looking at the crowd he continued in sarcastic tone, “Everyone needs to know when coming here you must bring a pen with the relevant documents and a vehicle to drive at the exam.”

Then again he looked at the candidate standing at his desk and demand. ”Go and get a pen yourself without standing here like this.”

By then a fellow in the crowd passed a pen to him and it settled the matter. Everyone searched for pens and people who don’t have one, searched for a pen owner who can lend it to them.

Now it’s time for the next candidate. He is a boy at his twenties and wearing a t-shirt with a denim trouser and deck shoes of the latest fashion. He is having a pen in his hand and showing it to the frowning examiner. But this time examiner is looking at his deck shoes. He pointed his left hand toward the shoes and asked him to remove it. Everyone is looking at his legs now. From his eyes it is obvious his shyness but obeyed the instruction by removing the shoes. Then he is advised to remove the socks. He looked at the crowd who are watching all eyes and some with mouth agape.  Chintha noticed that one of the socks is having a big hole in the sole. The candidate started to remove the pair of socks while both the crowd and the examiner are watching.

“Is he hiding something?” Chintha thought to herself. If Manori was nearby she could have something to say about this. She thought and turned her head to the direction where Manori is standing. But Manori is looking in the other direction.

When Chintha returned her gaze back to the scene the boy’s fate has been decided. He is slowly rolling his denim trouser legs to the knee height without looking at the crowd anymore. Examiner is quite unhappy about his slowness and opened his mouth again.

“Have I asked you to rip your trouser down? You are embracing like you are doing a sin. Do it hurry and show me your two legs together”.

Some were laughing but when examiner turned his head toward the crowd everybody stand still in silence.

“Oh! My gosh! What is he doing?” Chintha thought to herself. The person next to her saw her facial expression. It was that international school teacher.

“Don’t worry…” she said with a consoling touch to her shoulder.

“It is checked to see if both legs exist. You can take medical certificates for money like everything, you know”, she smiled.

“But he is not checking it in everyone”, Chintha said still in disbelief.

“If you applied under heavy vehicle category and wore shoes and cover both legs, then he’ll do the double checking”, she reassured.

Later Chintha found out what she had said was true.

It was almost late in the afternoon when the two girls left the RMV office situated in off the city of Colombo. Are they happy with the driving permits? By looking at the faces one could figure out that they are feeling tiresome. But if it is possible to penetrate their thoughts, one could clearly observe that happiness was nowhere to find.

Without telling to each other they forget the late lunch they were planning at the lunch time. The cheerfulness they had in the morning when coming to the RMV premises has been ripped off from them. They get into a bus routed to Colombo city. While on the bus they called the office and extend the half a day leave they both applied into a full day leave. Then each one called home to assure and soothe worried mothers at home that everything is alright.  Of course they were pleased to catch a less crowded and fast travelling bus, not like the one they travelled in the morning.

In a thirty minutes travel of the bus took them to the heart of Colombo city. From there they departed from each other and got into different routed buses as they both lived in suburb of the city in the opposite direction. While at the bus Chintha thought about the unpreparedness of her in the situation compared to the International school teacher she met at the RMV office.  With an education up to a university degree and twenty-five years of living experience in town, knowing how harsh and corrupted the society is; she had to let herself be the victim ultimately.

It was in that night, Chintha wrote a new blog post called “Riyaduru Perahara (The procession of drivers)” criticizing the work conducted at RMV office, giving instruction of what should be known by anyone who is going to that place. Furthermore, asking general public to stand against these wrongs. Her personal blog which she has originally dedicated for IT related articles and sharing new trends in the IT field, henceforth started to talk about the corruptions of the society and how innocents are suffered. What the world didn’t know at that night was, it is the sacred night that gave birth to a fighter who will over the years start eradication of corruption in the society and save innocents.

It was this same night Manori could make her husband agreed reaching him through a voice call over the Internet to apply for a Permanent Resident in Australia immediately.

————————————————————————————————————

This was an entry for the Commonwealth Short Story Cometition 2012.

COMMONWEALTH SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2012

The Start.

By Surangi Tissera.

This is the winter season for Europe. Working hours changed Preshantha is in a really bad mood. According to the new schedule she has to work from one thirty to ten thirty in the evening. Previously she could start the work an hour earlier and leave at nine thirty, which is an hour earlier than now.

This is Preshantha’s first paid job. Just after her secondary education, she joined “Rise International” as a Data Analysis. The company is an UK (United Kingdom) based pioneers in outsourcing field and also the first of its kind to choose Sri Lanka as one prospective location to open a branch office. Preshantha was lucky enough to be chosen as a “Real Time Worker” which provides more and more benefits comparative to general employees of the company.

A “Real Time Work” means work according to the Europe working hours. This requires starting the work at odd times to cope up with the five and a half hour to six and a half hours time gap between Europe continent and Asia continent. And also it requires working in odd days like local holidays as well and having leaves in odd days like holidays in Europe countries. At first, it was the most extraordinary experience for her and her family. All by her at ten o’clock at night outside home was the most horrible thing she could imagine at the time. Even her elder brother is supposed to be back at home before nine o’clock in the night. This is due to the fact that most of the government and private offices are closed down around six o’clock in the evening. And public transports were hard to find after nine o’clock in the night.

But now the excitement period is over for her. This is her second year after getting the permanent employment with the company. Now a day it’s only the counting hours to get off for the day and days for the next salary is all that matter to her. But she couldn’t figure out what is the cause for her present uneasiness or unhappiness. Could it be the Aruna’s marriage? Could it be Rohan’s promotion or something else? She started dipping to the most depth of her feelings in the heart.

Aruna, Preshantha and Rohan comprised the “Trio” group as it is known to everyone in the Rise. There are few other groups except Trio which are having interesting names like “Spice” also from Sri Lanka, “Duel Ducks” from Germany and “Xmen” from America. Most of the other groups have only the boring names documented at origin like D10.1 or CIX which were the official identification given to the groups at the beginning of those projects.

The Trio group which comprises of two female employees and a male employee is one of the oldest and the most successful project carrying out by the Rise International. Trio always kept this same blend of two females and a male from the day it was first initiated, although original team members had left the Trio group.

When Preshantha was joining to Trio, both Rohan and Aruna were there. When consider their ages Aruna is the eldest where Preshantha is the youngest. When time slowly passes, three of them became the best friends. They are belonging to three different religions and it was always an interesting combination. They together spend most of their free times at work and even each others religious festivals they get together and celebrated. Although their friendship gets flourished, at the same time they get isolated from fellow members at the Rise International. This is the very reason why Preshantha has to spend an unhappy isolated times at office now.

It was the Aruna’s wedding that the first change Trio experienced. It was a proposal from Aruna’s relatives in India. As a result, after the marriage Aruna had to leave from Sri Lanka to go to India where her husband lives. But the Trio operated as usual with Preshantha and Rohan are working in the Rise International’s Sri Lankan branch and Aruna is working in the Rise International’s Indian branch.

Gradually two of them learned to pass the time without Aruna in physically with them. Through e-mails and phone calls they continued their friendship. It didn’t take so long to start rumors about Preshantha and Rohan. Also two of them felt very bad about the situation and gradually tried to minimize the time they spend together.

Rohan started playing Badminton, which gave him the opportunity to make new contacts and evade from Preshantha most of the time. Preshantha started to study for a Computer Diploma just for the sake of doing something to pass the time. At first she wanted to move from the Trio group. But Ms. Silva, who was the projects manager, didn’t allow her as the Trio group performance was excellence and if Preshantha leaves suddenly it takes sometime to find another suitable person to the vacating post and to train that person. On the other hand there were no new project openings for Preshantha to join in.

Another two months passed with this same routing until one day after a management meeting came the news of Ms. Silva‘s promotion as Assistance Service delivery Manager in Asia Operation.

The vacating position of the Project Manager became the main aim of Preshantha. She got new hopes to do daily works. She knew she has the most qualifications among all of others. She was glad to think that all the others including Rohan are going to work under her.

Sometimes she thought why she became so angry with Rohan, who was once a good friend of her. Is it sheer jealousy or anything else? She felt the need to take revenge from him by hurting him so badly. She thought it’s very unfair of her to remain isolated while Rohan is having all the people around him after they started to walk in different routes.

Of course as always Aruna was a good friend to them and the Aruna’s e-mails and phone calls were the only things Rohan and Preshantha shared together in those days.

Her hope doesn’t last for weeks when the announcement came of Rohan’s promotion as the Project Manager. Only sensible thing Preshantha could do at that time was to congratulate him for his achievement. To Preshantha this new Promotion signaled the Rohan’s winning from the cold war two of them had.

For the first time in Trio’s history it comprised with three females. The newly joined girl was a fresher from high school and needed to go through a rigorous training in order to do her job properly. All in all it is really a tough time for Preshantha as she has to look into the newly joined Trio member’s training and together with Aruna had to cover most of the daily works in the Trio group. But the most intolerable thing for Preshantha is to report working progress to the new Project Manager – Rohan who is now called as Mr. Peris.

She thought Rohan is laughing to her at every time she saw him. Therefore tried to evade from him as much as possible which most of the time doesn’t work at all. There was thousand of other information he needed to request from her or discuss with her about the ongoing projects. At some point she thought he is trying to steal her innovative ideas and use them as if they were his own. Or may be he is trying to find a fault of her so he may come up with a good scheme of punishing her and ultimately sacking her from her current job.

She has taken all her available official leave for the present year. Today is one of the worst days for her as she has to hand over a leave application form to Mr. Peris’s approval. She had to struggle with herself over the idea of walking up to Rohan’s new seat. She felt sad about herself because she couldn’t help her out of this shameful situation.

A plot started to work in her mind. That is if he speaks a word about her works or her overly taken leaves to resign from her current position at once. At the same time she knew it’s a difficult thing to find so quickly a new job which will provide her present salary and benefits. She can remember the time she spent before getting the present job. Looking for jobs in the news papers, writing applications and facing desperate interviews which turn out to be she is lacking experience, qualification or she is having everything more than interviewing panel expected. She wondered whether she will have to stay long in unemployment, struggling to find a job or with her current experience she will be able to land in a much better job than her current position.

She was in this day dreaming when she heard a familiar call of her name.

“Preshantha what are you doing at this hour of the night? It’s nearly 11 O’clock now.” Rohan was walking toward Preshantha’s seat.

She got out of her dream only to find empty seats around her which symbolize that all of the other Real Time Workers have taken off for the day. She is not scared at all because she knew there are people working around the clock in other sections of the office. But Preshantha felt glad to speak with Rohan all along. She hasn’t spoken with him along during the last eight months as they were evading all the possible casual meetings. She thought she saw the familiar friendly smile of Rohan’s which always in his face and which most of the time she thought was a mocking remark. But she doesn’t want to show any of her feelings now. So she hardens her facial muscles and manages to pose back the same question to him.

“What are you doing Rohan? Oh! I forgot, Mr. Peris. You must be busy with those reports preparation I guess.”

She is not expecting an answer and is not looking at him at all. She is getting ready to take off.

All of a sudden she could feel a hand touching hers. She tried to get rid of it but couldn’t. In a second she could hear his caring voice.

“Preshantha let’s stop this. Aren’t we good friends?” In silence she listened to him without giving any sign to his talking.

“I was looking at you all this hour when others gone. I have good news for you Preshantha, with a bad news too”.

Preshantha looked at him and saw his dark clouded face. He kept speaking while looking at an e-mail on his other hand.

How handsome and good looking he is she thought to herself. She has never admired or looked at him or anybody in this manner. But she thought why she couldn’t notice it before.

“You are given a year scholarship to our head office in England to work and learn as a team leader to our new project going to be launch at the end of next year. This is officially to be informed to you on tomorrow. I was waiting for this message.”

Could he be joking? She thought. Preshantha knew she shouldn’t trust him. So let it be officially informed to her why he should worry about this. But Preshantha needs to quench her curiosity.

“And the bad news is ….” She asks.

He looked at her eyes straightly for a second before talking.

“Preshantha I needed to say this much earlier but I couldn’t… I couldn’t cheat my best friend.”

For the next one or two seconds none of the two speak.

Rohan broke the silence.

“I can’t go on a year without seen you Preshantha. Can you?” Rohan kept his gaze at her eyes while holding her hand in his both hands.

Now Preshantha is sure she too feels difficulties in leaving Rohan behind. Deep in her heart she felt the hatred she had for Rohan is changing for it opposite feeling. But she wanted to understand the clear reason for this sudden behavior of Rohan. She tried to calm down herself and understand the full meaning of his talk.

“What are you talking about? Cheating me?”, Preshantha asked.

“I have far more precious feeling toward you than my best friend should have”, was his answer.

———————————————————————————————————————————

This was an entry for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2012.

COMMONWEALTH SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2011

Tags

Short Story

The Conscience.

By Surangi Tissera.

Vindya never thought she was living with this sort of people in all her life. How she admired the world and the people. It seems all these years she was living in a fairyland. All of a sudden, Satan has become the ruler and once a heaven like her sweet world has transformed into a hell.

 

How? Or at least when this happened? Nothing comes to her mind. Lately, she was thinking deeply about everything took place in her life.

Being the eldest child of a middle class family; she had all the necessary attention. In fact, she was the apple of the eyes of her parents.

Vindya is a fair girl with a thick long black hair comparable to a fairy queen. If she was a common dumb child; she could have been a spoiled lass by now. But she had a conscience with a brilliant brain. She knew what she should and should not do, what sort of friends she should have and with whom she should not hangout.

However, she wasn’t sure what the sole mission in her life. Then she wondered whether others also think why they do or don’t do certain things. Yet, it was too early for her to understand about the world she lives.

At the beginning her world had just three: father, mother and a little puppy called “Tommy”. When Tommy was killed by a road accident, she had just celebrated her 2^nd birthday. “Death”, was a new word to her vocabulary and a new concept to think. Although her mother brought her a new talking doll and her favorite ice cream; she wasn’t playing as usual. Instead, she wanted an explanation from her mother. But, her mother was more concern about Vindya not doing what she supposed to do.

“Babies should play with toys”, said mother repeatedly until Vindya get board with her own questioning.

She thought; her parents worrying because she no longer plays as usual. Vindya did the best she could. On the very next morning, she sang the sweetest song she knew to her father before he went off to work. Then she started dressing dolls and making tea-parties with them. She wanted her parents to thinks that they got their baby back; with the way they wanted. But, nobody understood her struggle with her conscience. Vindya continued her acting.

She got a sister and a brother, when she was eight years old. Her parents were so busy with their new born twin babies. At first, Vindya was very pleased to have new siblings. She thought; she could share with them all the things she knew. May be together; they could find answers to all the questions.

But, she was mistaken. They were like all the others; who had no genuine intention other than following the common routings.

Anyway, she will never meet them again.

“Just people without consciences”, she heaves a sigh of relief.

Tomorrow, she will start her journey to the “Universe Conscience Academy” situated in the other side of the universe; to be trained and to become a pre-human. “Human” as they were called, had extinct from the universe many centuries ago. Their creations, robots are ruling the universe and doing their utmost to create the Human artificially. In fact, Vindya is considered as one of higher generations’ robot who could cultivate a human thing called “conscious”.

———————————————————————————————————————————
This was an entry for the Commonwealth Short Story Cometition 2011.

LEARNING………….!

Tags

Article

When a human grow older and older they get wiser and wiser. That is because they unknowingly receive experiences in every second of their stay in the Earth. That may be the reason it says “Old is gold”.

 

Modern humans or the Home sapience also have a mechanism to get wiser and wiser through every generation they pass to reach the present status. That is called “teaching” or passing once hardly earned knowledge to another who may not even had the situation the other had to learn it in the natural way and more probably be never be able to learn the fact through his life, if this “teaching” mechanism doesn’t exist.

Well you may say then what if that second person doesn’t receive that knowledge which he never be able to use in his life time. Well the point is to pass the knowledge once known to others in the hope that some one in this eternal life chain will one day need that precious information. It doesn’t matter if it comes in a year later or trillions of years late that the needed fact is there.

As always there is this probability that what if some careless person in between the line get struck. So, can we say that this mechanism is error proofed? Well…. Well…… the nature gives another name for that error message. It’s called the destiny. There is no pre- molded rule as to say that this has to be occurring in this particular way.

SKY – THE BACKGROUND OF LIFE

Tags

poem

 

sky-the background of life(2007)

 

This poem was published in the Sunday Observers Newspaper ( Sunday, 4 May 2008 ) Amateur Poem column. The link is given here.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog. This will reflect all my new writings which include short stories, poets, articles or anything with literal value. Please do comment and let me know your thoughts.