She and He

She told him that day that she was tired of going to the movies and wanted to go to some other place. She said that from the top of the hill, overlooking the city, the view was breathtaking and the vehicles on the road looked like ants carrying torches from above. So he went to the stall and packed some snacks. They had enough to last a day on the hill.

While on the way to the summit, she switched on the DVD player in the car which played heavy metal music of the new band in town. He particularly disliked this genre of music and thus reached his finger to the player and switched it off. "Please, please" she pleaded. She was the definition of beauty and when she pleaded, he couldn't refuse. "OK", he said and switched it back on.

"Tell me", she said, "The gambling house you've started. Does it really give you happiness? Its not ethical you know."

"Why do you think that its unethical? It’s perfectly legal. If it wasn't I would be in prison
right now", he said as he lit a cigarette.

The car engines purred on as they traversed the desolate ghat section in the night. The night was so dark that it looked like a void ahead. When the car headlights fell on the road, it seemed as if the road was automatically forming itself in the car's path.

"Yeah?", she said sarcastically "Don’t you know that there have been so many cases filed
against you. You've just exploited a particular loophole in the law to get away from all
this."

"I'm not a criminal unless proved", he said as he took another deep puff of smoke.

"The Moral Gamer", which was so deceptively named was the only casino in the strict coastal city. All the previous ones were either shut down or had their managers arrested by the new dictatorial regime which labeled gambling as an illegal activity. This casino was an exception and it worked thus -

There were 10 "games" that you can play and each "game" required two people. To play a particular game, you had to pay an entrance fee, the amount varying for each of the different games in the casino. If you win the game, "The Moral Gamer" gave u a cash prize of double the amount you had paid and the loser got no refund. Basically the loser's money was transferred to the winner, which is exactly what happens in gambling but this transaction was done in a very different way, which made it really difficult for the city authorities to sue the casino in a court of law. The money given to the winner was given as a cash prize for winning the game and the loser's money was the fee for playing the game. If anyone wanted to play another game, he had to leave through the exit and come back through the entrance by paying an entrance fee again. Being the sole casino in the city, it was an instant success. The casino made all its money through the concerts that it arranged and the advertisement banners that it displayed.

"But you're not happy doing this, are you? Then why do it anyway? You know what the Gita says? The path to happiness and complete harmony lies in spirituality, not indulgence."

"I don’t give a rats ass about spirituality", he said. "The main point here is that I'm not
hurting anyone. Don’t you also know what the Gita says about this? When Arjuna refused to fight his kin in the battlefield, Lord Krishna Says that an action is always judged by its merit. Its always acceptable to kill, if its for the greater good."

The night was getting cold now and there was a steady breeze blowing. A little ahead in the distance, there was a line of cars parked and bright light shone. It was a park, that was
cradled in the scenic beauty of the ghats. It was like a gap carved into the mountain
wall. Imagine a birthday cake with a piece on its outer periphery cut away with a knife. This formation looked just like that except that this was natural. On one side of this formation there was a natural waterfall formed by a small stream trickling down from the top of the hill. Artificial lighting of various colours gave it a romantic feel.

"Want to stop here honey?", he asked, throwing out the cigarette stub and slowing down the car.

"No, I don’t think so. This place is so crowded today. Must be because of the holiday
tomorrow", she said casting a sideways glance at the place and added naughtily "Many people will stay here the entire night today, I guess."

He smiled as he shifted to a late 3rd gear.

"Yes..", she said again. "I don’t think you are causing any greater happiness. All the losers will be really sad, you know"

"But for every person who walks out sad, there is going to be a happy person who won. So doesn't that cancel out ?", he blurted a well-practiced reply.

"Yeah.. So where is the greater good coming into the picture honey, if there's no residual
happiness"

"What I meant to say was that I am not causing any great happiness or sadness. Just leaving the world as it is. So, actually I'm not doing any harm." He lit another cigarette.

"Ok..ok..", she carried on, "Lets look at it this way. Say A and B play and A won. Now A
uses this extra money he wins and plays against C and this time C wins. Don't you think that there are going to be two unhappy people now - A and B and just one happy person - C"

"Not exactly", he said. "Suppose that both A and B, play a game with a fee of 5 rupees each. If A wins he walks with 10 rupees and suppose now that he then plays a game with a fee of 10 rupees with C and loses. Now C has his 10 rupees. So B has lost 5 rupees and A also has effectively lost 5 rupees because out of the 10 rupees he loses to C, 5 was won from B.

Now A has lost 5
B has lost 5
C has gained 10.

So, A and B are half as unhappy each as C is happy. So when you add up their happiness and sadness, they cancel out." He concluded with the air of a lawyer.

She didn't look very impressed. "Darling, how could u quantify happiness with money units. That's exactly what is wrong with you. But still I love you and that is what is wrong with me", She joked.

She wrested the half-smoked cigarette out of his mouth with the excuse - "This is your 23rd for the day" and kissed him. She then threw the cigarette into the darkness of the forest where it fell among the bushes and looked like an orange star in the sky.

"Enough about me", he said recovering from the kiss. "Tell me. You've been to the summit before. Why were you here? With a guy?", he joked this time. He always wanted to have the last say in anything.

"That is why I tell you, you don’t pay attention when I'm talking about my job. You know the animal rights group I'm involved with ?"

"Yes". He accelerated the car to a 80kmph speed.

"Yeah...we were protesting against a new Ayurveda medicine. It’s supposed to cure headache and eye-sight problems which is ok but the catch was that an important ingredient of the medicine is deer fat. So we came to the summit and threw the medicine container down the hill to signify the beginning of our resistance. Today we have convinced so many people and they are all burning down the containers…. and do u know where?"

"Where ?"

"When I threw it from the top, it landed in a hay pit at the foot of the hill. That is where
all the people are now throwing their medicine.. and at 10 pm today, we set fire to the hay
and dispose the medicines permanently"

"Oh!" He said looking at his watch. "Its already 9:40. You will miss the last rites", he
said.

"You are too funny, you know.", she said laughing. "I can see it from the top of the hill."



"….. and, now I see it", he said keeping up the sarcastic tone. "That is the reason you wanted to come here today. Not to spend some happy time with me."

"No baby, there's a reason other than that. Have you forgotten that today is the day you
proposed to me in high school ? I want to celebrate this anniversary in a special way
today.", she said playfully raising her eyebrows and also added "We'll be alone there".

"hmmm..", he smiled. "Anyway, we'll reach in another half an hour. We just have a few more curves to take."

"Look..honey", she screamed as she pointed to the drop at the right. "They've already
started the fire. Everything's going according to plan. Yay!!"

He glanced outside the window. Down below, he saw a big fire emanating from the location she had pointed to. "I am happy for you", and he seemed to be too.

After about 20 minutes, they reached the summit and he stopped the car beside the viewpoint.

Both of them got out of the car and walked out hand-in-hand to the edge and both of them
peered down at the burning spectacle. It was a big fire that burned in about a 200m radius
and all the cars were moving away from it. The fire must have burnt for a while now as
everyone had decided to return back to their homes.

The night was quiet now except for the sound of the wind ruffling the leaves when she grabbed hold of him and they kissed for about 10 minutes.

There seemed to be tears in his eyes.
"Honey, I'll be going to Beunos Aires the day after tomorrow for negotiating a contract
to open another casino there and I'll miss u dearly during that time. Is there any chance you could come too?"

"No", she looked dejected. "My organization needs me. These are turbulent times with many people threatening my workers. I need to be here."

She then walked back to the edge to take a final look at the medicinal bonfire and spread
her arms wide feeling the strong wind. "I feel like jumping off", she said all of a sudden
and put one leg into the air and looked down. He ran to the edge standing next to her and said, "Don’t do that. You are scaring me." and held her arms. She looked at him and he saw tears in her eyes.

"Its all right. I'll be back in a week", he said.

"Good bye honey!! I'll wait for you", she said and reached into his pocket for the packet
of cigarettes.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to smoke"

"No way, It’s injurious to your health"

"Come on you keep doing it all the time. Lemme try just this once. Please! Please!"

"All right", he said reluctantly and with his back to the breeze, "I'll light it for you".

..and while he was lighting the cigarete, she violently threw herself on him, kissing him
and so hard did she that he lost balance and slipped off the edge of the cliff. In the last
moment, he grasped a protrusion with both his hands and lay there hanging from the cliff. He looked down and saw the fire still burning.

She calmly picked up the cigarette and lighter from the ground and lit the cigarette.

"What the hell are you doing? Give me your hand", he screamed in fright.

She smiled as she walked back from the edge and found a rock to sit on.

He struggled to climb back up again but he slipped. There were now deep cuts in his palm, which was bleeding.

"Ha Ha. You know? Sooner or later, you are going to fall into the fire and no one will even find your burnt body. That pit will be closed tomorrow.", she was now enjoying the act of smoking.

"Don’t do this, please. People are soon going to find out and you'll end up in jail. Don’t do this."

"Darling, did u forget that I have your e-mail password. I spent the whole of yesterday
writing your suicide note from your account. I have mailed it to myself."

"What!!!!????????", No please. Give me your hand"

"I want your casino."

There was disbelief in his eyes. "You were just arguing about my casino not conforming to the law of greater good."

"I did agree with your argument"

"So, why do you want the casino, then ?". There was now both disbelief and pain as he lost more blood from his bleeding palm.

"Yes, I agree with you to that that for every man who walks away sad there is another person who is happy. But you have forgotten one thing. ME!! If I own "The Moral Gamer" now, I'll be happy and so what do you have now. An extra happy person. and what was it that the Gita said honey? It’s ok to kill for the greater good. You told me so yourself."

"But what about me? I am not going to be happy about this. Doesn't that cancel out your
happiness!!"

"That is why my dear, I am making you a non-entity in the Universe by eliminating you
completely"

He could say no more. He was still hanging on. She decided that she had talked enough and went over to the edge, "Goodbye", she said and gave him a hard kick on his face. He was already at the limit of his stamina trying to hold on for dear life. This impact was too much for him and he lost his grip and fell right down into the blazing fire at the foothill.

She threw her cigarette stub, walked back to the car, revved up the engine and drove calmly back in the night.

As she drove past the electronic advertisement banner of "The Moral Gamer" that day, the display appropriately changed to a perfume advertisement with the punch line - "Beware the female of the species".

Minesweeper!!

Got into the twenties after a long time!

The Universe, God, Us and the Big Scheme of Things.

As I see it, the Universe today is a result of two opposing processes. One process forms the basis for the 2nd law of thermodynamics - A process i spontaneous only if the Entropy (randomness) of the system increases as it progresses. Since the birth of the Universe (the big bang), it has been expanding. The solar systems, stars and galaxies are all effectively moving away from each other in the space-time fabric. The other opposing process is the beautiful phenomenon of evolution. In this process order comes from disorder. Atoms and molecules come together to form "meaningful" combinations. Useless permutations die out.
The Universe is nothing but a set of rules. These are the rules, that we discover as scientific laws. One simple example is the law of gravity, which says that two bodies of mass attract each other. Now, imagine a Universe without gravity. The randomness of the Universe would have been even more as there would not be any means of keeping two masses together. So, gravity is here for a reason. The Universe desperately wants to keep matter together even as it expands. Thus, to sum it up - the Universe has created rules for itself. Whatever we see and don't see around us is a result of these rules. Our scientists are constantly discovering these scientific laws and this is a positive step. Even life and its struggle for survival is not because life wants to live but it is because the Universe wants life to live. Don’t get me wrong here. No doubt we want to live but this want has risen from within our mind and our mind was made by the Universe through the process of evolution. This is the reason we live today and think. The laws of the Universe have interacted with each other and created everything that is there today.
Now, I’d like to take the next step and say that our thought process is nothing but the
Universe's desire to understand itself. Yes- we voluntarily think but as I've mentioned
before, the Universe and its laws have evolved us to such a state where we could think. As we evolve, we become more complex beings, with an advanced capacity for understanding. We would continuously discover more scientific laws until we know the entire Universe. This is the ultimate stage of our evolution and the goal of the Universe - complete understanding. At this stage, we become GOD. We cease to exist as single entities and we form a unit. This is very similar to the concept of the human body, where individual cells (living being by themselves), make up the entire unit.
I do not know for sure when this stage would be reached or if the Universe is even capable of it, given its desire to "move away" (Is spirituality the counter??) but according to me, if this stage is reached, it would be the ideal state where the meaning of the Universe would be clear. I would like to restate it as -

"A time in the distant future when each particle in the Universe is part of a meaningful, conscious whole that has completely understood itself."

This is when we become the Universe, we become the GOD.