Never Trust A God

Thousand moons back a powerful King of Lanka had ambition, and that was, to be the King of all three worlds; prithivi, pataal, and akaash. He was not contended with just ruling over Lanka. His goal was straight but not the ways and means! Imminent was to gain more power than any asura, manava, and devata. Challenging each and conquering worlds one by one was gigantic task, he knew. Only Lord Shiva’s vardana may help him in his pursuit. And pleasing Shiva for such vardana was not easy but the King was confident of himself. He had firm determination to do so and courage to embark on tedious and torturous tapasya to make Shiva grant him vardana of his choice. Ravana, the King of Lanka, had faith in his prowess to conquer the whole brahmanda and also in his deity; Shiva.He was a knowledgeable man, a great pundit but also a great warrior. Shiva’s vardana was his only invinsible weapon to give him power to be the master of all loks. It was either to subjugate or annihilate asura, manava and devata on lands, waters and skies. There was no choice but Himalaya as his tapasya sthali as the Lord Shiva and his wife Parvati had their abode on Mount Kailash. He embarked on a long journey to the difficult terrains in Himalayas, his tapasya sthali. It had rugged terrains and harsh climate- almost inhabitable but Ravana was undaunted by all hurdles and weather vagaries. His strong will power had been his key to success. Tapasya was to be torturous and annihilating but he knew the more he suffers the early his Lord could be pleased and grant him vardana of his choice. Ravana settled on a hillock facing Mount Kailash, his Lord’s abode and went into deep meditation in a most difficult posture chanting Om Namah Shivaya. Thousand of days and nights passed but Ravana remained immersed in worshipping Shiva and continuously chanting the mantra. The whole Himalayan range had the echo of his chanting Om Namah Shivaya and reverberated by hills all around him. Chanting, echo and reverberation made the Himalaya Shiv maya, nothing but Shiva’s name reverberated there! 

……….In child hood Ajju had a complex being dark and desired to get rid of his complexion. No body lotion or beauty cream ever worked which he tried to be fair complexioned. Ajju did try even talcum powder shown in the advertisements with some beautiful film actress. When nothing worked and his complexion remained as dark as it was he turned to prayers. After all God is Almighty and has power over any thing and every thing, as he has read in the Holy Scripture, Ajju prayed to Him. It proved futile as his prayer was never accepted in this regard. He did regret it for years and it always depressed him that he has dark complexion. Ajju was happy now for being dark and not handsome. At least his bottom was saved from humiliating caressing and brutal pinching! Ajju was now thankful to his God for making him the way He deemed appropriate! He Who Only Knows the Best, Ajju thanked.

 Shapur!

A God forsaken city!

It was a city of petty shopkeepers and traders running all kinds of business in age old fashion. Modernisation has little impact on city dwellers except they wore trousers and shirts! It was a classic example of chaotic development or what fussy economists call development with out growth! All main roads were congested with all kinds of traffic- cycles, mobikes, cycle rickshaws, tonga, carts and cars. As small cities either have no pavements for pedestrians or pavements clogged with shanty shops. In either case pedestrians have to use the road. It’s pedestrians’ responsibility to save themselves from traffic’s onslaught! Interesting behaviour of different mode of transport could be noticed in these cities. A cyclist has to save the pedestrian, rickshaw a cyclist, cars a tonga, rickshaw a cyclist and cyclist a pedestrian! The higher order has to save the lower order mode of transport otherwise any slight bump could turn into snow ball and idle onlookers may pounce upon the aggressor to teach a lesson till the Police arrives on the scene. On highways if pedestrian gets hurt while running across, not only the culprit vehicle but also its driver could be in serious trouble. Later the Police may take over where the bystanders left!