(Estimated reading time: 6 minutes)
It was dark. Pitch dark. It seemed like a stage of nothingness. There was a complete silence, dead silence. It was frighteningly silent. No reaction or response, because there was nothing. Zero! Zilch! Nada! Shunya! Mute!
A ray of light appeared. It was followed by a steady stream of rays. It seemed like this phenomenon presented itself in it’s fully glory with the whole spectrum of light scattered throughout the surrounding. The blaze flared up.
Then it got hot. It started getting progressively hotter. It got to a level where it could not get any hotter than that. It scorched everything in the surrounding. They say that fire, or heat in this matter has the power to purify. It eliminates all the impurities and brings out only the best.
It started cooling down. It remained so for a long time until it cooled down substantially. It was a vessel, a circular, empty one. Time passed. The vessel got filled with celestial ingredients. It was just perfect! Every constituent of the mixture was perfect, just enough of everything to sustain life. Enough warmth, enough water, enough nutrition made it a solid ground for life. Everything evenly and perfectly distributed for an ideal environment. It had earned its significance. It earned a place for itself. It was peaceful, undisturbed, settled. It had sustained the dark, the silence, the heat. It had imbibed the very essence of energy that crafted it right from the nothingness. It internalized the energy, stabilized it and evolved itself into the cradle of life ready to finally hold the miracle within itself. All it needed was the divine spark, a heavenly blessing for its impregnation to jumpstart life. The time was ripe.
It happened! A handful of blessing got bestowed upon it. It was just a matter of time for the life to flourish.
As it was destined, the blessing had the seeds of life. The ground got impregnated. The anticipation, the pampering, the gestation period… it was too precious. It would be an occurrence beyond expectation. The suspense, the time it would take for the manifestation of life, the ordeal it would have to suffer would be overwhelming and too stressful to handle. How wonderful it would be to witness the creation!
It would be better to leave it to itself. Let the life emerge by itself. Enough intervention! Creation of environment, a perfect ground and a mark of blessing should be enough. There should be a time to take a step back. Relax and let it be on its own. Unperturbed it laid there. It seemed like it was testing the patience for another eternity, another epoch, and perpetuity.
At last! A tiny speck appeared on the ground. It marked the beginning of life. It was the predecessor, the first born of the ground. It was unique, glabrous yet dark in appearance. It became the first seat of the culture. The civilization would take off from here. It was now expected to grow, flourish, go places, and achieve feats unlimited by imagination. It was supposed to bring the divine glory on the ground and manifest the energy of the universe to its full potential. So much was expected from it but it wasn’t a burden. It was simply expected, hoped out of pure care, love and dedication.
It was a success, finally. All the labour, the hard work and patience had finally been a sweet reward. The creation gave the beaming smile back to the creator.
A while later another tiny spot appeared at another place. Then next spot of culture and then another. These cultures appeared along the outline, ridges and grooves of the hand of the blessing. Each spot had its own uniquely beautiful features and attributes. Each one had their own colours… black, brown, white, yellowish, red, green, orange, blue, purple and every colours in between as if the internalized spectrum of life reflected through them. All of them were unique and yet they had something in common, the hand that blessed them.
The life continued its journey through ups and downs. Each seat of the culture had its phases of evolution somewhat akin and running parallel to each other. A slight difference here and there added to the diversity, added zest and vibrancy to the life nurturing vessel. The vessel had started beaming with life in its every nook and corner.
Then it started happening. The unavoidable, the phenomenon that was best avoided at all times, it was approaching. The catastrophe was imminent. The curse hidden within the warps and wefts of the life started revealing itself slowly and steadily.
One of the cultures could not contain itself with the resources it had within its boundaries. It demanded more… more of space, more of resources, more from resources, more from the life. To sustain growth in the environment it started spreading to nearby cultures, deep into the ground and aimed for higher space in the firmament.
The commonness that was the unifying thread became the bane as the encroachment of that culture started spreading its tentacles of ambition to ask for more. Most other started pushing their boundaries into each other’s spaces. Those who chose to stay away from the maddening annexation or were weaker compared to their counterparts started losing their ground. As the time moved on, they were drastically reduced to bare existence or wiped out from the existence from the lack of resources and inability or lack of survival ways during the invasions.
The cultures clashed among each other in close territorial battles. White against black, green against yellow, red against orange and the battles continued. Allegiances were forged to combat the opponent cultures and soon forgotten only to invade each other. The regions started becoming putrid and barren, deprived of life force every culture was bestowed upon with generosity before the war mongering began. The only respite was the places where two or more cultures embraced harmony, albeit for a little while on the continuum of time.
From above the frustrated set of eyes looked with extreme sadness. The vessel which was once beaming with life was in chaos and destined decay. It was all chaos! The toll of discord was elimination.
An upheaval occurred. A great deluge flooded the vessel. The life was getting uprooted. The vessel got empty again. The trace of life that still wanted to cling on to the vessel struggled in vein begging for forgiveness.
“It’s all useless. I have to start afresh!” the voice said.
The Petri dish was getting ready for a new start. It got placed in an autoclave for disinfection. It was dark and silent again.