The Shape of Our Lives - Part III

Maya invited her guest in. She had entertained guests before but none so gorgeous or so young…or so eligible. Astitva on his part couldn’t believe what he saw. It was his first interaction with a female and something within him stirred. Back home he had been in love; with a guy, Vikram. His heart was aware of the body pleasures of skin touching skin, at the most intimate of the places of the mental pleasures of sharing sweet nothings and the talks of the most intellectual kinds. He was aware of the agony of missing a loved one and was infact going through it. But nothing matched the emotion he felt at the moment. He was still to come to term with the concept of opposites attracting…so intensly.

As the evening fell and the two shared the titbits of their lives the atmosphere inside the room became as intense as the one outside. It hardly seemed that they were meeting for the first time or that they belonged to two different worlds. It seemed the most natural thing to fall in love with each other, marry, bear children and spend a lifetime together. A life full of love, laughter maybe occasional tears that were the messengers of future smiles.

It’s so funny that no one needs a training how to make love. Some things come in naturally...even to people who belong to 2 different races. Maybe it has something to do with how well the mountains of one fit in the valleys of the other. The soul carries an intimate knowledge of the smells, shapes and tastes that it would like to own and merge with.

It was just a slight brush against each other that made them take the plunge. Maya had taken Astitva out to the garden to show him the golden kingfishers that she kept as a pet. Those were beautiful birds with the nicest shades of blue green and a hint of gold. It was still raining; the kind of shower that drives any kind of resistance that it encounters. Both of them were well aware of the peaking desires and maybe such a strong emotion blocks out everything else. Suddenly Maya slipped over a piece of uneven stretch- her eyes were too busy drinking in Astitva that she forgot the contours of the land, over which she walked maybe a thousand times each day. She fell down and still didn’t register the fall – it was Astitva who saw this happening. He stretched out his hand to help her up…their skins touched and mixed with the torrent created lightening inside each cell of their bodies….a reaction that no philosopher, no scientist or chemist can ever explain. Momentarily that made them drew apart only to flame the desire of experiencing it again and again. Both of them understood that despite what ever they felt they didn’t have more than a few hours with each another...maybe nothing more than the sunrise the next morning. This time when they stretched their hands; it was to come closer, to give their feelings a tangible form. To pull down the cover from the most wonderful form of interaction that can happen between a man and a woman. To celebrate life. To be one…not just with one another but with time, space and eternity. Like the sky and earth the two strangers were connected by the rains, the rains of passion.

Morning arrived. It’s so strange…thought Astitva, I almost feel I have known Maya for ages, yesterday seems so far off and yet the night has vanished in seconds. He promised that as soon as his “worldly” duties for which he had received the calling were done he would take the permission of Gods to wed her legally so that they could stay together for ever. With lots of tears and love biddings the two of them parted, counting the seconds till they would meet again.

On his way ahead, Astitva mused. He had made it sound so simple to Maya… the fact about the two of them meeting again and staying together for a lifetime. Things weren’t that easy. The responsibility for which he had been chosen by Gods made him one of the most respected persons on his own planet, giving him an almost a king like status assuring him of a rich and fulfilling life ahead. But that was where it ended. The rule book said that the “Chosen one” can under no circumstances sleep around, with men of his own kind or woman of the God-kind. Any such act would bring him a punishment of a cruel and painful death. Right now there was nothing that could be done, except walk. If he reached his destination maybe a day or two in advance he could convince the Gods, to let him go off and spend the rest of his life with the creature with whom he had fallen in love with. He decided not to think of what would happen if the issue invoked the wrath of the Gods. The thought itself was so cold that it made him shudder in the hot midday sun. He decided to walk fast so as to cover the distance in shortest possible time and then maybe, maybe he had a hope….Maybe….

The Shape of Our Lives - Part 2(Read Part 1 before this)

Things would have gone like this forever and this story would have been buried under the Atlantis. But for the incident that changed the course of her lives and of us.

The day was cloudy. Strong winds were brewing from across the oceans and had not the snakes held on to the cottage so strongly Maya would have been in an aeroplane:). She was seated at the window, her favourite seat where she could look at both the worlds. Then it started raining, in torrents. So much that it seemed a waterfall had found its way from heaven to the earth. Suddenly Maya saw somebody coming along....

She couldn’t believe her eyes..today of all the days? When it is raining so hard that it seemed the 2 worlds on either of her sides will get mixed in each other, under the influence of the pouring liquid. Was it possible that the rain god himself has come? Anyways there was nothing much to be done except waiting until he came nearer.

On his part the stranger was equally enamored by the light that stood still in the pouring weather. His mahagony forehead seemed to be baked out in the sun and was held so high and mightly...and his eyes..they gleamed with the strange light, such that the entire effect was that as if on was looking at the sun itself. Amidst the rain and light; well he could have been an onlooker's personal rainbow..with a beauty that made people warm with desire and yet noone could reach out for.

He walked straight ahead unflinching in the pouring rain. Coming closer he realized that it was a cottage. Maybe a likely place where he could get food, water and human company. It would probably be days before he would see another house or a human face for that matter.

He was greeted at the gate by the snakes and a little behind them by their charmer. Custom dictated that a single male could not meet an unaccompanied maid or vice versa. But Alas! These were the customs of the world and neither of them were slightly familiar with them. And then there was noone to stop them or tell them this fact. Astitva as Maya later found out came from another world. A world where the average age of a human was 200 year s and where there were no females. Yeah you read it right. Just the men. And contrary to what you think it was an interesting place. The heart misses and longs for what it had. Not what it never had, never saw or heard of. The men of course never mated (they did sleep around) but in the absence of the woman kind they led carefree lives.

But then a planet no matter how populated cannot survive for long without children. Without sex. Of the very best of the men were chosen from the lot and were called by the Gods to create a progeny from their own kind. 2 distinct breeds mating with one another, one the rulers of the worlds and another the carefree and often useless. The end results were often a class apart in themselves and more often than not they were woman. The class between Gods and men. The gold between platinum and silver.


So Astitva was the chosen one and right now he was heading to the Land of Gods. His mates back in his world were unaware of his absence. For them his body was still there amongst them, working eating sleeping talking..doing everything that it would normally do. It was his spirit that was traveling. Astitva told Maya that this period that he would be spending outside his world would like in all other similar cases would make his body (rather the functioning brain inside the body) unaware of what was happening to his spirit. But his spirit could sense and be aware of all the happenings to his body and otherwise. However when he would return back, to his body to his world slowly the memory of all this would fade away, like a dream. The memories of the body would overlap that of the soul.

The Shape of our lives- Part 1

I told u so much and so less. That unlike you who is ridden by the doubts that pave your path to the next life; mine still linger from the previous birth; like the aftermath of a bad paralytic attack. That our karmic connection is so intense that it will take several generations and many more lives to wipe the karma of one birth. That we share more than you can ever imagine........

We were born out of the same womb in our lives....almost at the same time. To two different men; however. She was an intense woman. A snake charmer. Who charmed snakes (and men) leaving them quivering to her intensity. She lived multiple lives in the lantern shaped cottage by the end of the world. Or between the worlds. At the very threshold. Shadowed in the white light and illuminated by the blue of the darkness. To a weary traveler conversing the worlds; it looked as if the cottage hung in mid air, held by the invisible hand. The lantern shaped cottage with she the light within; casting the blue white glow with her beauty and charms to creatures on either side.

The fact was however different. As a young toddler to unknown parents she had wandered into the middle of the forest; by the shimmering lake. There she found a playmate, one of the most unexpected kind. Snakes. They took fancy to her and she to them. Instead of being a meal to the family the parents to indulge their sons and daughters (even in those long lost days some things were quite the same) adopted her as a family. When she grew up into a lass with skin as fair as the ice shimmering on the mountains above and eyes as green as the undergrowth in the Amazon jungles. She learnt all the arts and sciences that the creatures of the land and sea are aware of. She could glide up as easily she could walk on water. For all her charms and powers she came to be known as Maya.

But everything comes at a cost. To protect their closely guarded secrets they put her in this secluded cottage. She could meet the people traversing the worlds (which were rare as one in hundred years and her keepers didn’t really like that she should entertain them as well) but for the rest of it she was all alone....with the snakes to keep her company.