India- Then & Now

Once upon a time, before the world was demarcated by border lines and religions and Earth was taken over by the Human Race, there existed a tiny magical kingdom called India.
India was so named after its beautiful and generous queen, Indiana.
The inhabitants were a mixed lot consisting of elves, brownies, pixies, ghouls and goblins.
There were only two humans in the entire land.
The Queen, Indiana ; and an old wizard, who went by the name of T.Ray.
Those were magical times when feelings such as jealousy, hatred and discontentment were unheard of and everyone was equal. Nobody was poor because nobody was rich. Even Indiana led a simple life, inspite of the fact that she ruled the land and could have had anything she wished for.
But she lived in a small wooden cottage where she grew pink and white lilies in the front lawn and a small vegetable garden in the backyard.

In India, the daily assembly addressed issues that were settled in front of the whole kingdom.
The inhabitants helped each other whenever they could and feelings of animosity were alien.
The only person who was not satisfied was T.Ray. A wizard by birth, he was the most powerful man in the entire kingdom and was called whenever someone was ill or needed a stroke of good luck.
The wizard secretly desired to be the King and make radical changes throughout India. He wanted to drive out the goblins from the land and assign important positions to the elves, who were an innocent lot and worshipped and admired the wizard because of his magical powers.

One day, after much deliberation, the wizard decided to speak to Indiana and to show her a magic preview of what the ideal India would be like if only she would let him make a few changes. He knew he would never be able to fulfill his dream without her consent, as Indiana was the most powerful woman in the entire world and nobody ever dared to refuse her word.
The wizard woke up early in the day and got ready for the daily assembly.
By the time he reached the assembly venue, the daily issues had been resolved. T.Ray-the wizard, went to see the queen who welcomed him, unaware of his propositions.
The wizard explained to her how beautiful a world he thought it would be, if they drove out the goblins from their land.
Indiana listened to him patiently and tried to reason with him, telling him all living beings had a right to live wherever they wanted to and that the great kingdom of India had never discriminated against any section of people. She warned him that such an action would cause unrest among all the inhabitants and disturb the peace.
But the wizard was not willing to listen.
He thought he had formulated a perfect theory for existence and felt insulted that Indiana didn't welcome his views.
Finally, when Indiana saw that the wizard was not going to relent, she started fearing the outcome of his obstinacy.
She banished T.Ray from the kingdom forever and asked him to leave India within the next two days.
Feeling dejected and insulted, T.Ray experienced an alien feeling take over his entire being. Always hailed as the wisest man in the entire land, he had not foreseen the possibility of the Queen declining his suggestions.
Anger and an urge to wreak havoc began to dominate his thoughts and he vowed to avenge himself.
He went down to his basement where he stored all his magic potions and brews and began to practice his black magic.
T.Ray concocted a strong magical potion and with the help of a few of his faithful elves, sprayed the potion over every vegetable garden in the entire kingdom, with the exception of the Queen's garden which was always heavily guarded by the ghouls.
Within the next one day, every brownie, pixie, elf and goblin had eaten from their vegetable gardens and the magic potion sprayed over the vegetables made every inhabitant go mad.
They started behaving in a most peculiar fashion. Arguements and disagreements became commonplace and everyone resorted to reacting violently at the slightest provocation.
The only unaffected people were Indiana, because she consumed only the vegetables which she grew in her own private garden which had not been infected by the magic potion; and of course, the wizard himself, who had by now left India.

It didn't take long for the queen to realize what had happened and she immediately issued a series of edicts governing public safety.
But now, since she was the only one left who could think in a rational manner, her words of wisdom were misunderstood by the inhabitants and they together stormed her cottage and beat her to death.

Elsewhere, the wizard saw in his crystal ball all that had happened due to his magic potion. He was not a cruel man, just greedy for power and status. He started repenting all the trouble his actions had caused and his guilt for causing Indiana's death became so enormous that he went into solitary confinement and his mind deteriorated. He became a mad man and lost all sense of reason. He travelled all over the world looking for Indiana to appologize to her. But Indiana was already dead and the kingdom of India was being divided again and again - sometimes by the pixies, sometimes by the goblins, till all that was left of it was small pieces of land that its inhabitants called States. The pixies stayed in one state, the elves in another, the goblins in yet another and so on. Nobody came for anybody's assistance.
The effects of the magic potion were so strong that it had now permeated itself into the very soil where all vegetables were grown.
Everyone went mad and behaved in as violent an irrational a fashion as they could- sometimes in the name of religion, sometimes in the name of politics and sometimes without any excuse at all, till the very name of India was wiped from the face of the Earth.
And what happened to the wizard? Well, that's another story altogether.......

Encounters

It had been an unusually busy week for Sammy.
He was happy with the way his work had been treating him, but honestly, 36 straight hours in the office without a moment to collect his thoughts were a bit too much even for him. The last time he remembered being absolutely alone was when he was freshening up in the office restroom for his meeting. And those few moments of solitude had been interrupted with the loud Venky barging in with his frequent burps and toothy grins.
It was 23.30 p.m. on a Saturday night by the time Sammy finally left office. He was looking forward to a Sunday full of Playstation gaming, beer and reclining on the Lazyboy he hadn't quite had the chance to use yet.
At 29, Sammy was undoubtedly what girls and their mothers would have called a "a Prime catch"....something that his Mom couldn't stop gloating about and something that made Sammy feel like a trout. He was tall, lean and conventionally good-looking. A workaholic, he had quickly climbed up the totem pole in his professional life and was the head of the Marketing department of the entertainment channel he worked for. His only other passion in life besides his work was the time he spent exercising in the gym- the only place where he allowed himself the luxury of taking time out for himself.
As Sammy got into his car that late Saturday night after work, he wondered if he'd wake up on time the next day for an early morning jog.
"Nah....think I'll just sleep till late tomorrow. God knows i need some sleep," he thought to himself, glancing in his rear view mirror at his reflection.
But there was something more than his own reflection that made his eyes dart back to the mirror.
Something that ran a shiver down his spine.
Something that made him rub his eyes to made make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
When he opened his eyes again, he knew he wasn't hallucinating.
It was still there...a mesmerising bright beam of light that seemed to cut through the plush seat of his car, as if to focus on the neatly placed wooden box that Sammy had never seen before.

Sammy's first instinct was to bolt out and check the license plate to ensure that he was not in someone else's car. But then his eyes fell on the the bright red cloth his mother had devotedly tied around the rear view mirror when he had come home after purchasing his gleaming Honda CRV. She had said it would avoid an accident on the road as it carried the Lord's blessings; and an agnostic Sammy had reluctantly agreed though he personally thought red didn't go with his choice of dark blue seat covers.
Sammy slowly turned around to see if the wooden box was really there or if he had imagined it.
And sure enough, the box was there illuminated by a light that could not be attributed to any source nearby. It was a foot long and just as wide. Richly hued with an arabesque pattern, it was unlike anything Sammy had laid eyes on before.

Sammy pursed his lips and frowned as he stared at the box , considering the various questions that were now flooding his mind.
Could it be a bomb? "No," Sammy thought, "I'm sure no terrorist group would bother to plant an explosive in a box that beautiful..This would cost them a small fortune."
He looked closer and marvelled at the craftsmanship, " Whats wrong with me", he thought, cursing for letting himself get distracted by the beauty of the work of art that was staring him in the face.
Could it be that someone accidentally left their box in his car? "Hardly possible", Sammy reasoned," the burglar alarms would have sounded off and alerted the parking attendant if anyone had attempted to open the car with a duplicate key."
Tempted to see what was inside, Sammy gingerly reached for the box and as he did so the light illuminating the box now enveloped his hand. Sammy gasped and quickly pulled his hand away as he realized that the light was cold and had made him shiver.
He took a deep breath and reached for the box again, his hand penetrating the light and coming to rest on the lid of the wooden container. As soon as his hand touched the lid, the light disappeared as if someone had miraculously switched it off.
Sammy lifted the box with both hands but was surprised to find that it was incredibly light.
"What is this stuff?" Sammy said to himself,"A wooden box can't possibly be so light, even if it's empty."
But the box was not empty. It could never be. If Sammy had thrown the box out of his car and drove home, he would have been able to adhere to his Sunday plans. But that was not to be. For no mere mortal in the past had ever been able to touch the box and then throw it aside.
And Sammy was no exception.