Abhishek Kralia
In the time before time when the darkness of nothing existed, she created the light, and there was light everywhere, then she created earth. She validated the presence of every beautiful thing around us. She rejoiced the whole process of the creation of beings. There was a being without a name and an identity. They were named humans. She considered the humans as her best creation. She marvelled at her artistic creation. It was so beautiful and serene. The magical word was that she created humans in her best possible way. The humans lived with the creator in her home, but they were lured by the devil and ate the forbidden fruit. It is said that the creator expelled humans from the heavens as a punishment, but humans were given earth to live the another most beautiful creation of the creator; it was not punishment of humanity rather an act of forgiveness. The creator knew that humanity was not pure anymore, she knew humanity will be lured by the devil towards the darkness as he lured them towards the forbidden fruit. So, the creator sent her angels in different forms, the one we call our messengers, our prophets. The prophets were on earth to guide humanity towards the righteous path, they taught only one thing, ‘love each other’. After sending the prophets on earth, she went to a never-ending sleep, quite sure that humanity will never sway from away the path of righteousness. Then one day she was awakened by a scream. It was the day when earth screamed, she screamed for humanity, and a dark cloud was hovering above her.
“Huh! What was that? Someone’s in distress”, a deep voice in the never-ending light speaks. She looks everywhere to find the source of that noise, she turns her eye towards her marvelous creation in green and blue ‘so magnificent it is, there lies my purest creation, my own reflection.’ But she could still hear those screams like someone is in excruciating pain.
As she looks closer, she sees a man with a gun yelling, “You unholy people! you do not follow the true God, you are not worthy to live.” He kills many innocents with a proud certainty in his heart and considering this brutal act of killing as an act of God.
“Who is God?” the voice in the light exclaims, surprisingly. She questions herself, “why did this man kill those innocents?” Failed to find the answers, she moves her gaze to another place. To her utter shock, what she witnessed there. Even this place is not exempted from the wrath of people. “This is where our God was born, you destroyed it and created your own God's place”, the crowd screamed while destroying the place.
“This is the place of our true God. We have been worshipping here for so long and will do forever”, another group of people with sharp weapons standing beside them roared. They bellowed some chants and slaughtered each other.
“What is this madness?” she exclaims.
Wherever she looked people fought in the name of her angels, prophets and something called as religion, no one followed the path of love and righteousness, no one knew who the true creator was, all they did was fight in the name of Ram, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, the prophets she had sent. No one knew who she was or what her path was. The humanity prayed to someone with utter dedication, but it was not her. It was then she started questioning herself, who she was, is she the Allah they worshipped “no I can’t be him, they killed people in his name, she looked the other side”, sometimes she thought of herself as Jesus, but then she refuted this thought immediately and proclaimed, “ but how could I be him as I am the creator of the whole humanity. I could not be the light of just a handful.” She also rejected considering herself as Ram too and asserted, “What if I am Ram they pray to, if I am him why people destroy places and kill in his name. They destroy other’s place of worship so that they could build their own.”
It was the first time she questions herself, observing the growth of humanity and thinking about whether the humanity tree cultivated edible fruits or not and coming back to the present moment, “who am I for them? Am I a Christian, or a Hindu, maybe a Muslim, I think I am a Jew?” She thought.
How can I be something or someone I never was? Something I never intended to be? She never understood why humanity was divided, who made religions for them, “I never made it, oh no, I didn’t.”, she said.
With no one to talk or discuss with, even she was confused by the pseudo-identities humanity had posed as it was new and different for her. People had forgotten the path of humankind and morality and were fighting only as the guards of their identities. She had seen humans killing other people just because they were of a different color. Then she looked at herself and realized that she had made humans in her color, but she was colorful and humans had forgotten that.
“This is something I had never created in humans”, she comprehends.
“Who could it be then, who could do such a thing, who had preached such a doctrine of hate to humans which had spread throughout the earth, if such was the condition of his creation, it was no different from the hell where there the Satan resides”, she comments.
Many questions are raising in her mind “who should she question now, who should she blame for it, who did that? The humans were fighting in the name of the angels she had sent on earth to teach the way of light. How could her divine light teach such hate?” With no answers to her questions, she found one way to resolve things. She underwent heavenly meiosis, she cut herself and recreated the angels who were sent to preach the flowers of love to humans. She is so upset with humans that she cuts herself into different selves to understand how humans have come to such a stage of hatred instead of love. She also wants to punish those who preached the lessons of hate to humanity. In her thoughts, she unequivocally held prophets responsible for the distorting lessons of hatred delusion in the whole of humanity.
In a glorious citadel with a magnificent dome, prophets and guides are called to satisfy the quest of her enquiries. They stood firm and felt the angry gaze of her, which they failed to resist. She put up a series of questions in front of them, which they did not even think of. “You were solely responsible for the proliferation of love, kindness, wisdom in human beings but to my utter disgust and your failures, they learn only the evil values of hatred, cynicism, pride and prejudice. They are loftier in their nature.”, She aggressively questions them. She continues, “No one follows the path of humanity; instead they fight in your name, you are to be blamed, they created some identities they call religion and they are fighting to protect it. I saw them killing each other. They have built shrines for you and kill their brothers in your name. Who is to be blamed?” She now gets furious and a rumbling could be heard throughout the universe.
Even the prophets are not aware of the disastrous fates of humans. They stare each other confusingly and utter, “this isn’t what we preached.”
“But they do fight in our name brother” one of them affirms the allegation of her, “They think that we are different entities, but believe me, we are the fragments of divine light, we are the same and nobody could fragment us.” Another Prophet proclaims, “We should be utterly responsible for the declining kismet of humans. Obviously, we had been given the task of spreading wisdom among humans. I think the whole blame upon us is the most burdensome thing and we should be ready to hold this altogether.”
The one prophet who used to remain silent suddenly comes out of the silence zone and speaks out boldly, “I could not believe in the failure of our teachings. Our teachings could not go wrong because they rely on the unanimous, magnificent, flawless, and ubiquitous principle of life – LOVE. Our teachings were based on this canon. I doubt that this love instigates the feelings of killing and hatred among humans.” The discussion went long, with no satisfactory answers.
For her, humans are the product of the cosmic amalgamation of all her teachings, ideas, thoughts, beliefs and faiths. She always considers herself as nameless, shapeless and formless. She is astonished and angry at the human preachers who are befooling others in her name. How these preachers motivate humans to establish temples and shrines of her. She has been given different names despite being a nameless entity. She is omnipresent and omnipotent. She is he and he is she. This is the secret of her existence. Nobody could vanish this universal truth. Humans are made to forget her true identity. It is not too late to make humans realise their wrongdoings. She never wants the destruction of her most beautiful creation humans and humans destroying her beloved heaven earth. After a slight soliloquy, she decided to reveal the truth to humanity. She commands her prophets to go back to the earth and amends the errors by enabling humans to come back on the right path of love, which is now away from their reach.
On reaching earth, Diviners are not surprised to behold the whole surrounding of lust, avarice, and hatred in humans. Humans are not aware of any kind of humanity and kindness. These are more or less absent in their characters. Angels are scattered to the different parts of the world with a sole aim of leading humans to the path of righteousness. They decided to visit the places considered holy by humans. As religion is the most fundamental attribute of humans. One of the prophets entered a mosque, where the morning prayer was going on. He observed the presence of male devotees in the mosque. There was not a single woman there. He probed the absence of females to the preacher there, “Could you please tell me the absence of females in this religious shrine? Don’t they show their gratitude by praying to the supreme power?” The preacher seemed to laugh at the foolish question and answered smoothly, “Firstly our god is Allah and his only true name. Secondly, females do pray, but they are not allowed to pray in the mosque. They pray at their homes. Women look good in the veiled culture. But tell me, who are you to asking such ridiculous questions?” The prophet in his common man’s attire repudiated his explanation based on discrimination because in the eyes of God, everyone is the same. He articulates, “Women are also the creation of supreme. They are equal like everyone. It does not matter where you pray. The important thing is whether you are grateful towards the supreme or not. Supreme, Ah! Allah will not forgive you for your discrimination against the women by not permitting them to enter the mosque.” This whole argument boiled the Maulana and he started shrieking, “How dare you to call us foolish. You are abusing our place of worship. Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Throw this man out before he speaks more ill of our religion and Allah.” In a second, a bloodthirsty mob gathered and waiting for the order of lynching. In an attempt to protect himself from that bloodthirsty mob, the prophet asserts, “You should understand the outcomes of your stupidity. Love begets love and this could be the only principle of your life. The wrong path of hatred leads you only to hell.” A young boy of nearly eighteen with a knife in his hand said, “shut up! We very well know who you are. You are a monster in human form. Throw this man out of this place; otherwise, I will do something horrible.” They pushed him and threw him out of the place with the glorious chanting of their God.
All other prophets also felt the same experiences of disappointment towards humans. Humans are burning in the fire of rage, revulsion, and revenge. Their only and principle motive is to kill others based on religion, colour, caste, race and prove their superiority. After observing the whole scenario of evil doings, they realize that humanity is no longer on the path of divinity and is drifting to the hands of the devil. With each passing day, the prophets begin to apprehend that humans had plunged into the deep gorge of sins where turning back is impossible and hence the damage would be irreparable. The ultimate master of the prophets, She, is in a state of restlessness in heaven. She only sees the veiled earth coated with sins of humanity. Darkening clouds envelop the whole earth. She ultimately realizes that the devil lures the humans in the same way as it was utterly responsible for the temptation of Adam and Eve. Nobody could protect themselves from the tempting attempts of Satan. Due to the darkness everywhere, she is unable to find her prophets. In a gloomy mood, she tries to remain calm. Suddenly there is a ray of light and to her happiness, she gets a glimpse of her prophets. She orders them to come back to her space.
In a spur of the moment, prophets vanished from the earth. Those mortal beings chasing prophets are now surprised with the sudden extinct of mystic beings. They are now divided in their opinions. Many consider those prophets as, “the ghostly beings who came to earth only to threaten people.” While others think of them as angelic spirits with the highest aim of humanity. A man in a mob says, “What if they were really angels from heaven to teach us the right path of humanity and brotherhood.” Another man opposes this firmly, “This is ridiculous. If they are divine, then they should stay here and not vanish like clouds.”
In heaven, Supreme and her angels are still observing the activities of humans. Some people tend to assess their wrongdoings and decided to amend their evil activities. There is silence. When one of the angels asks about her further action, she says, “I know what we saw was bothersome. We witness the two faces of humanity. One side is drenched with evil; others realize their sinful activities and want to change. I know what to do now”
With the lively eyes full of tears, she stares at her earth. She just wants to hug the earth and her children. Suddenly the dark clouds were gone.
Then there was light everywhere.
To begin with, the title of the story was quite captivating. Beginning did not enthralled me much as I apparently took this story as the usual one. Gradually, my engagement with the story matured and I couldn’t stopped for a bit till I finished it.
Furthermore, I really like the unconventional notion of considering the creator to be a feminine entity. The style of narration is simple, straight-forward and targeted.
To conclude, I would say it was really a thoughtful and an agitating story which enlightened the core ground of “Bellum Sacrum”.
Regards