Here’s how it all started

Recently there has been a lot of hype among the educated-yet-unaware-people thanks to the sensational-yet-worthless reporting in the television news media about the end of the world. There has been talk about black holes, energy explosions and destruction of the Earth. 10th September 12:30 pm IST is supposed to be the time when all hell breaks loose. In fact one of the national news channels actually made the following statement:

“Though scientists across the world are rubbishing claims of the destruction of Earth, the common man strongly believes that an end is eminent”

Who cares if the poor geek-like scientists who have buried themselves in books ever since they were conceived and checked, double checked and cross checked their equations, solutions and experiments a hundred times over say that there is nothing harmful in what they are doing. Ignore the scientists. What do they know! The common man says its the end of the Earth and the end of the Earth it is. Even though I am writing this at 12:43 pm IST, 13 minutes past the dreaded time of destruction and mayhem.

Well it turns out that one of the research institutes who specialize in high energy particle physics have planned an experiment that will tell them about the origin of our universe. A bold attempt I must say. But since everyone is convinced that they will blow us up instead or feed us to a hungry greedy black hole, I thought I should publish what they would have discovered. This is the story of our universe.

So here’s how it all started…

Long long time ago, well before the birth of our planet, there was nothing. No stars, no galaxies no atoms, no energy, not even light. In fact, if you can imagine (and of course you cant!) there was no space either. Truly nothing. And there stood God! Tall, dark and handsome. I don’t know why he was tall and handsome, but the dark part was simply because there was no light. It was he who had created this nothing and after proudly witnessing his creation, he got utterly bored by it dullness and worthlessness. So with an embarrassed look he thought of creating something.

Two spells and three ingredients later was born the universe. The recipe was terrible and the cooking even worse. After an intellectual blunder which created nothing, it was an execution failure that gave god his second screwed up product – the universe. It looked like irregular shaped clumps scattered all over the place totally useless and completely ugly. Irritated at his own incompetence, god kicked the universe that sent all these clumps flying away from one another.

Little did he know that 13.5 billion years later some weird life form that calls itself human, living inside one of these flying clumps calling it a galaxy would see that the other clumps or galaxies are moving away from one another and spend years and years to come up with a what-it-will-claim-to-be-a-brilliant-theory that the universe started with a huge blast called the Big Bang and that there is a mysterious force called Dark Energy that pulls everything away from one another and causes the universe to expand. So much for the frustrated kick!

Anyway, for now god was all upset and began whining about his failed products. He realized that there was no one to listen to him. He needed a companion. So he had another idea for another product. I have to admit that for a dumb god he got quite a few ideas. He planned to create himself a companion. Now there was no point making a companion that could not understand him or would not be able to interact with him. So he decided to make life. Life was to be something that could understand him, interact with him, help him, support him, be his friend and partner. Life would help him make sense of what was going wrong with everything.

So again a few spells and some exotic ingredients later he created life! It was alive, breathing and moving. Ironic as it may be, within seconds of creation life ran away from god and went into the universe. An utterly frustrated and dazed god could do nothing but watch another blotched up plan fly away from him. Flying across the lumps of matter in the universe life saw a shining ball of fire which would eventually be known as the Sun. The slight distraction due to this ball of fire was enough and life crashed onto the third rock from the Sun.

On this rock, life which is itself intelligent created multiple shapes and sizes and forms of its own self. Each with varying degree of intelligence. The rock is now called planet Earth. The biggest forms of life – the mighty dinosaurs were happily living and feeding off one another completely oblivious to what created them or what their destiny would be. They had little intelligence. There were plants with lesser intelligence but even lesser demands and requirements.

Meanwhile god was planning his comeback. Embarrassed at being left high and dry by life, god summoned massive rocks and launched an attack on planet Earth. All the dinosaurs perished. The dim witted humans eventually called this “a random asteroid hit” after spending ages trying to figure things out. Massive rocks from space managing to hit the tiny earth which is one of over 1000 billion objects in the universe seemed like a chance event to some weirdo.

However life found a way. It survived this attack. Considerably weakened, it could not muster enough power to create the massive dinosaurs again and hence it created humans. Humans who saw a few monkey bones lying in their backyard and came up with the theory of evolution. Humans who saw the galaxies going away from one another and came up with the Big Bang theory. Humans who built a huge particle accelerator and devised an experiment of find out how the universe started.

And that is where we stand today. If the experiment is successful, this is what we will know about the universe. But then again the common man is confident that this will not happen. He is confident that we will blow ourselves up even though right now it is 3:00 pm IST which translates to two and a half hours after destruction. The current date is not 10-09-2008 A.D. but it is 01-01-01 A.E. – After Earth.

A Troubled Heart

She was scared, nervous and completely lost. She could hear her heart beat real hard and could feel it pounding against her ribs. She was on West 85th Street. As she entered Central Park and walked along the familiar track towards Turtle Pond she was glad that it was raining. She had forgotten her jacket at home. She had been forgetting a lot of things lately. For three weeks to be precise. Her mind was a complete mess. The jacket was just another thought lost in the myriad of emotions. As the cold October rain kissed her cheeks she knew it would drown any tears that may break through at any moment. Her eyes had betrayed her before. She knew they would do so again.

“At least today no one will know”, she thought to herself.

She remembered their last meeting. It had started so well and ended so disastrously. That was three weeks ago. These three weeks that followed had completely isolated her from the world. The three weeks had wreaked havoc in her life. They were not letting her live. It was an effortless act to place the blame on these passively passing hours rather than the way their meeting had turned. The blank and aimless days were to blame. The sleepless and long nights were to blame. That is where the problem lay she kept telling herself.

Three weeks ago they had met at their regular spot. In Central Park, next to Belvedere Castle on the edge of the Turtle Pond. They had met there regularly for months. Twice a week, thrice a week, sometimes even often. This is where she had fallen in love. This is where she had learned to live and her life had begun. But on that day something had gone wrong. She couldn’t figure it out. That evening the love of her life had said that things weren’t going well. That they can’t carry on any more. That this is the last time they would meet. She was shocked. Since then, every moment of every passing hour she had wondered what was it that went wrong. How could this have happened? That evening, those cold piercing statements had taken a few minutes to sink in. Before the full blow hit her, the two of them had already kissed one last time and left. It was after this moment that her heart cried through her eyes. But with every passing tear, her heart wept a few more. It kept getting heavier and heavier. Now, three weeks later, it was ready to burst.

She was a few meters away from Belvedere Castle. She had decided to go to Central Park and try and reason things out. She was in love and knew that she always would be. For her this was going to be a battle for life. Not just her life but their. In a society that had opposed every move she ever made, her love was her only support. They had fought together. For her, it was her girlfriend, Kia who was everything. And now she was loosing her. Not speaking to her for three weeks had already drained all the life out of her. With what was left, she was going to fight her last battle. She had not told Kia about this visit. Kia didn’t know she was coming. She knew Kia would be there at this time. Central Park had always comforted her and helped her relax. Today this coalition had broken. In fact, with every step she took, her heart was pounding harder and harder. She stopped in her tracks. The anxiety was getting too much to handle. She leaned over drawing support from a tree and took heavy breaths. A storm was brewing in her heart. Around the bend was the place where she expected to see Kia. This was the moment of reckoning. She had to get her life back in place. She started walking again.

Around the curve, the nervousness and anxiety was unbearable. She could feel her entire body throb with every fast paced heartbeat.

“What if Kia refuses to reconcile?”

She could feel her legs giving way. She soldiered on. She had to. It was a fear she had to face today. As she crossed the Castle her eyes searched for that familiar body. She was desperate for a glimpse of the girl she loved. A body she had owned in a sense till a few days back. The rain had stopped. The sky had cleared just a little bit. It was approaching sunset and light was fading.

Her job was made slightly easier by the fact that not many people were around at that time. Among those handful of people she saw the lovely Kia. As her heart leapt with joy and sank in apprehension at the same time, she got a faint smile on her face. Kia was sitting facing the pond. As she took a moment to relax herself before approaching, she saw a girl walk up to Kia. From a distance she saw Kia leap onto her feet and embrace the girl. She watched expressionless and motionless. The sight had pierced right through her fragile heart. Just stood and tried to understand what she was seeing. She could see Kia smile from where she stood. She could see Kia happy. A natural joy. An amplified version of the faint smile she got a few seconds back when she had seen Kia after three weeks. She closed her eyes and smiled to herself. For the first time her heart quietened.

As the Sun set on New York city and Kia and the girl locked their lips on the edge of Turtle Pond, she calmly and quietly turned around and walked off into the dark.