Anand Prakash

Right next to his brother’s temple, Kartikeya’s peacock ducks down and flies away with a rat. Kartikeya can’t let Ganesha win under no circumstances. Kartikeya had learned the lesson from his previous mistake: the mistake which also reeks for favoritism from his parents. Kartikeya was well aware that what a slow mover the rat is but snatching away the rat would give Ganesha guilt for not saving his own ride. If he can’t protect his ride, who would believe in his boons? How can he be considered auspicious?  

Sitting atop a the flying peacock, Kartikeya pondered over the devastating event. Mother and father gave Ganesha everything when he was away. If someone else does it, it’s called cheating. And if parents do that their own son, that’s a sin. The explanation of calling themselves ‘the world’ around which Ganesha made rounds, stink of narcissism of highest level. What’s wrong with them? When did they become so egotistic?

But whenever he started feeling lonely, his thought process changed. He pondered over the righteousness of his parents’ words. Maybe they were right? If they were right, then he must have been brainwashed by the twisted, forever wandering sage, Narada, who came to him and told him just before he was about to finish his journey, “Ganesha has won. Not only that he had been married to two beautiful ladies.”  Kartikeya asked, ” How did that happened?” The father of Narada, Brahma, the creator,  gave not one but both of daughters to his mutant brother.  Not only that by that time, he reached his brother had two kids as well. Now that’s enough.

The re-playing of the event brought back the pain. The pain which had been inflicted upon the rat by the paws of the peacock. The rat’s breath was shallow. Ganesha’s temple was approaching: it was the time to let the rat go.