Inspired from the Mahabharata: Aaron and Maithli

#1 Scented Bridges

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In my dream, there are lights, too many to count, dancing on an ocean too vast to envisage. Each one is brilliant, each one unique. I want to look at each one for the marvel it is, for no matter how many there are no two colors are the same. The light that comes from within is purer than gold, more light than air - each one a small piece of heaven. I try to reach out to them. Who wouldn't want to touch something so pure? They laugh and carry on just as before, each one just as beautiful as the last but disconnected even from their inner light and beauty.

6:00 am. Her phone's screen blinked to remind her of her day's tasks.

It was physical practice again. She didn't quite like physical exercising, sure learning the tactics and combating made her feel powerful, especially back home in Aaheli but not when it was forced and that too before dawn.

Maithli flashed a quick view at her screen: High School at 7 am (Toronto, Other World), Home for lunch at 12 pm (Toronto, Other World), White Magic Classes at 13 pm (Aaheli, Aryavad), Royal Meeting with the Aahelian Council of Ministers (Aaheli, Aryavad).

She filed the phone back in her pocket and knelt down to tie the laces of her basketball shoes together and pulled her socks up to adjust them. The parts that should have been white were dirty grey. She had just completed a few laps and panted a bit. She stared around. Rollerblading tracks, tennis courts, basketball courts, water parks and skate boarder basins. What else could you ask in the middle of a park in Toronto? Toronto, 21st Century, the Other World to be precise.

Later in the day, there should be vendors with hotdogs and burgers, vendors with curry and rice, vendors with tacos and sour cream. There's always music, sometimes clashing from various sources, none of them official. This was what the Other World looked like and Aryavad was nothing like it. The Other World was this post-modernist version of humanity. 

As such, the park Maithli was in, was also nothing like the gardens that cultivated Aryavad. The Other World's were miniature formal gardens for the elderly that had retired there for the quiet life. They had benches, ornamental trees and water fountains in clear lakes that were artificial and man made. That was the main difference between the Other World and Aryavad. 

But that was the beauty of it, Maithli thought. For anything to exist, it should also not exist. Oracle, her Master Guru often phrased, "It is in the absence of that which you are not, that which you are, is." It took Maithli much time to understand these words as a child but now she was beginning to understand it all. 

It was for this reason that for this Other World dimension to existing, it is more extreme importance that other dimensions exist too. One such dimension was that of Maithli, Aryavad.

Most people of Earth, as the Other World inhabitants, like to call their world, knew nothing of Aryavad's existence. And to be quite honest, Maithli preferred Aryavad much more than any other dimension- not that she had visited many. She was still very young in her tutelage and was still to master much more Gyaan, also called Knowledge. 

"But what's knowledge without wisdom?" Maithli mused in a breath. The skipping rope that she had gotten hold of dangled from her hand. The rope was black woven leather and the handles carved from wood and stained dark. She jumped uniformly, her arms almost still with her hands providing the momentum for her rope. There is a singing sound as the leather cuts through the air. Maithli's eyes are locked in front of him with an apparent focus. She's in the zone. Her Ipod swashed in some instrumental music and her ear plugs somehow stayed tuned in.

Wisdom is knowledge applied. The last time classes she had attended taught her this. She enjoyed classes immensely especially since they involved interacting with Aaheli's youth. She had duties as a royalty, that of not only being the heartbeat of the kingdom but that of also understanding the heartbeats of its people, her people. Still, she chose to stay drift away from her own people from time to time. She believed living in the Other World could teach her many things and then, her parents, the King and the Queen wanted to ensure her protection in that way.