Durga: The Last Chance

‘Heaven’ was the planet of Gods and Goddesses. This planet created the only planet with life, known as ‘Earth’ in this galaxy. Heaven was a planet of thirty-three million Gods and Goddesses. Among those, the most powerful trinity was Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Brahma among many other things created the planet Earth with life. Vishnu was responsible to preserve Brahma’s creation and Shiva was a destroyer for regeneration. The trinity created mankind to nurture and nourish the blue planet which was full of diverse forms of life and nature. But there was a problem now. As they gave complete freedom to mankind to develop their own civilizations and to protect the planet, the man acted differently from what was expected. The earth was a bountiful planet with abundant resources to sustain life. But the problem occurred slowly after the creation of mankind on the blue planet. The Earth was called a blue planet since on the sky of Heaven it used to appear blue in color. Now the blue planet was in crisis for mankind. Instead of protecting life on the blue planet, mankind started fighting among them. Each of the people of mankind to date used the faculty of their brain to acquire more and more resources. As a result, the resources of the blue planet were not shared equally among all the lives that existed there. This made them worried. So the trinity called for a meeting about what to do with the future of the blue planet. After a prolonged discussion, they decided that the real problem of the blue planet was intelligent mankind. So, Lord Shiva wanted to destroy mankind from the blue planet. The trinity agreed upon this decision. Now it had been decided that lord Shiva himself would go to the blue planet in human form to check on mankind for the last time in case they could show a reason for their survival. So lord Shiva took the form of a Bengali young unemployed man and landed on the Bay of Bengal in a spaceship specially designed for him. People saw the spaceship on the sea. The scientists became curious about aliens. The journalists kept on reporting on television, the internet, and print media. But nobody could enter the spaceship as the spaceship was protected by high-end technology. Whenever it sensed an object approaching nearby, it either destroyed it in case the object was lifeless or it threw a shock wave in case the object was alive. However, the people around it became extra cautious and the learned people around the world tried to communicate with the spaceship. But Lord Shiva with his godly power managed to become first invisible and then take a shape of a Bengali young man.

It was evening time. The sun was just about to set. Shiva came to a small tea stall by the holy river Ganga. There he found an argumentative crowd. They were discussing politics while sipping tea. He found it interesting and ordered a cup of tea. Then he finished the tea. When he was about to leave, the tea seller asked for money. He said that he did not have money. The tea seller asked whether he had lost his purse. He was a bit confused. The tea seller pointed out that he looked like a gentleman. So he inferred that he should have paid it later. He liked his generosity and wanted to know his name. He said that his name was Naresh. Lord Shiva said that he would go to his house to pay the price. He insisted that he paid the amount tomorrow at his tea stall. But Lord Shiva took his address from him. The next day by supernatural power Lord Shiva gathered some money and went to Naresh’s home in the early morning before he left for work. He found that it was a kind of a slum area. When he paid the amount, Naresh said,

You are too much of a gentleman. Why? I thought you would not pay for it. Who cares for ten bucks? Okay. So you work so hard to earn money. What type of question is it? Everybody works for money. Okay. How many people are there in your family? Four. My parents and my wife. You don’t have any kid.No as of now. Planning to have some? I don’t know. It’s very hard to run a family with the money I earn.Okay.Okay, I am getting late. I must open the stall. Naresh left the place. Lord Shiva thought, ‘What so wrong is happening actually? Bramha created the planet with enough resources for all living animals. But why is the tea seller scared to have kids? This is strange. I must destroy mankind from this planet.’ So, he became convinced that mankind should have been destroyed for sure and he should have started the process as soon as possible. For this, he needed to isolate mankind from other animals and matters of the planet. And he was already prepared for that. He uttered the mantra to isolate mankind and the process started within a fraction of a second. He started traveling in the city of Kolkata since it would take a few days to complete the process. As he took the form of a human being, he felt hungry soon. So he entered a restaurant. It was a medium-sized restaurant with a big television. He sat at a table and ordered some food. A news channel was being played on the television. The channel was broadcasting the news of millions of people becoming lost since today’s morning across the globe. Lord Shiva watched the television and smiled. The waiter served the food at his table. The owner, a middle-aged man, of the restaurant at the cash counter, was continuously switching different news channels. Some channels were covering Puja and some channels were showing the news of people being vanished in many parts of the world. As he was alone in the restaurant, the owner asked him,

Do you have any idea what’s happening around you? What’s happening? They are saying millions of people across the globe got vanished today? The process has been started. What process? Annihilation...When he was talking about ‘annihilation’, a police officer entered the restaurant and asked the owner,

Hey, did you meet any unknown person today? I meet many people every day. Are you watching television? Yes...More than one hundred people have been reported missing just today...He was about to say something more in panic. But he became magically vanished with a whooshing in front of them. The owner became shocked and rushed close to Lord Shiva and sat opposite to him. He shivered and asked,

Do you know anything about what’s happening? Yes. (calmly).Annihilation.What do you mean? Mankind will be annihilated. Why? Because of greed. What do you mean? Plain and simple. God created mankind to look after the earth. But they have mismanaged everything and created misery. If they are not annihilated, the earth will die. They are dangerous for this planet. So they will be annihilated. How do you know all this? I am a God. Are you kidding? No, I am a God. Okay. But everything is not so bad about mankind. Trust me. I don’t think so. We have created great wonders. That does not matter. We have discovered electricity. That does not matter. We have created the internet. That does not matter. I beg you! I don’t want to die so soon. That’s not possible. The process has been started. All human beings will be annihilated soon. Why are you doing this? Because man always fights with a man for controlling the resources. If I don’t protect my resources, I will become a beggar. The beggar is a creation of mankind. God did not create beggars. Yes, but I am not responsible for beggars. You are part of mankind. Okay, what does God want? He wants to protect the planet from man. From the man?Yes. This planet is in danger for man. Okay. So the spaceship belongs to you.Yes.Okay. Please tell me how to save this planet. This planet is safe. Okay, okay. How to save mankind? The process has begun. No other way out now. Lord, I am a foolish person. I think you should meet some wise men, who can make you understand the greatness of mankind. Where can I find them? Wait, I know a person. He is a teacher by profession. Let me call him. He immediately rings the person, whose name is Prasun. On the other side, a person picks up the phone,

Hello.Hello, Prasun uncle?Yes, Amit. How are you? Not good. Are you watching television? Yes, I was watching. Do you have any idea about what’s going on around you? Yes, uncle. I know everything. What do you know? It’s not possible to tell everything over the phone. Can we meet now? Right now? Yes yes, it’s urgent. Okay, I am coming to your place. He cut the phone. As Prasun was a dweller of the same colony, within fifteen minutes he arrived at the restaurant. Amit, the owner of the restaurant, was quite tense. He became excited when Prasun entered the restaurant. Amit described whatever he saw and knew till now. And he introduced Prasun with Lord Shiva in disguise. Prasun also got a bit scared. After a brief conversation, he said to God that he agreed to the point though he did not want to die so soon. Lord Shiva replied that the process had already been started. Then Prasun sat on a chair worried. After a pause, he said that there was a guy, called Nirban, who wrote about the same problem in a newspaper. But after that, he lost his job. The guy was a voracious reader. But he could not do anything in his life. Lord Shiva wanted to meet the guy immediately. Prasun, Amit, and God went to trace Nirban. They took a cab that drove for half an hour. After that, they reached a place, where they found a small stale old building. The building lacked maintenance everywhere. The building had a big wooden door that was closed. By the door, there was a window. Three of them came in front of the door and through the window they could see Nirban, writing something sitting in front of a desk. They knocked on the door and Nirban opened the door. He was a man of his mid-fifties. He had unshaven cheeks. He opened the door calmly and could recognize Prasun only,

Prasun. How are you? Not good, man. Why? What happened? Don’t you watch television? I sold my TV set last month. Please come inside. Okay. Let me explain. They entered the small reading room one by one. They sat on a bed that was there behind Nirban’s desk. Prasun explained everything to Nirban. Nirban smiled calmly as if he knew everything. Lord Shiva wondered a bit about Nirban’s calm smile and then asked him,

Are you not afraid of annihilation? I have nothing to lose my lord. I can die anytime with my belief intact. What do you believe? I believe that the reason, for which the Gods want to destroy mankind, is all justified. Okay, then please make up your mind and pacify your friends. But before you annihilate mankind, you must know a few things. What’s that? All men are not the same. I know but for one species the whole planet cannot suffer. Yes very true. But some people did show a way out. What could be the solution? Gods created the planet and its mankind with brains to think. But you people utilized the brain just to create differences – the difference in terms of race, the difference in terms of class, the difference in terms of countries. Could you not enjoy the resources you have been provided with equally or as you needed it? Some people thought so. Some people did not. Who were the people, who thought so? You have to give me a bit of time and I can show you about those different people who dreamt of an egalitarian world. Okay, take your time and explain. Nirban sat on his chair and extracted a few dusty files from under his desk. He opened the file and described all the egalitarian philosophies and movements so far happened on this earth. Lord Shiva became a bit worried. He said to Nirban,

Okay, I could spare this group of people, who want to build up an egalitarian world. But you have to decide who these people are. It’s impossible. There are many such people around the world. I don’t even know all of them. It’s just impossible. So you want to be annihilated? I guess there is no other way out for now. Okay, but I feel bad for these egalitarian minds. Let me pause for a while. I’ll go back to Heaven now to discuss the matter with Brahma and Vishnu. Okay that you can do. That night Shiva started his journey to the planet of Heaven on his spaceship. After reaching Heaven, Shiva discussed the matter with Brahma, Vishnu. They brainstormed a bit and found a solution. They identified the main problem of mankind. It was nothing but poverty that was hindering most of the people to access the resources created by Brahma. So they came to the conclusion that instead of annihilating mankind, one last chance could be given. So they came up with the idea to form Durga again with all the collective energy of the Gods and Goddesses to annihilate the daemon of poverty from mankind to establish a pure human society without inequality, illiteracy, pollution, homelessness, racism, hunger, poverty, inaccessibility to the resources, unavailability of health care and borders. But Shiva said that this was the last chance for mankind to exist on the blue planet. Durga must kill the daemon!