Shon Mehta

A long time ago, there was a village near Vanpore , the capital of Yashantika. Like in any other village in Yashantika, all land in the village was owned by the Grahvars, the class of highborn landlords. It had been so for generations. Not only did the Grahvars own the land, they also owned the Cetas who worked on the land. The Cetas worked on the farms, cleaned the houses, and did whatever they were told to do. The Cetas rose early and worked till midnight. They did so every day of their lives, and when they could no longer work they were simply thrown off the land. For the Grahvars, this was not cruelty. They believed that Sarvabhu, the God of Gods, had arranged the world this way -- the Grahvars were born to rule while the Cetas were born to serve -- and what had been decided by God could not be questioned by men. Then came the Unification of Jivavarta, and with it a revolution. The old religion of Tapasi was replaced by the new faith of Ajabuhi. This new faith declared that the Cet...

As a child, when people declared pride in their gender, ethnicity, or country, you felt confused. You never understood the pride of being born into something. What have you done to deserve your gender? Your ethnicity? Your country? You did not make them. They arrived before you did, as naturally as the weather. To be proud of them would be like being proud that it rained. Pride, if it must exist, belongs elsewhere. Pride belongs to the carpenter who shapes a table from stubborn timber, to the farmer or gardener who grows flowers from dry earth, or to those who create something with their own hands against the indifference of time. Yet you find yourself defending what you never claimed to have achieved. This is the strange part. You do not defend these things because they make you feel greater than others. You defend them because they are part of what makes you who you are. They are not medals pinned to your chest; they are circumstances from which your life was made: your ethnicity, yo...

A long time ago, in the Jivavarta mainland, a man escaped the ravages of an ongoing war and settled with his family deep inside a forest. Although he escaped humans, he could not escape the birds. When he grew his first crop, birds descended on his fields and started eating his crop. Enraged to his limits, he cursed at them, he shooed them away -- but the birds did not listen. They ate his entire crop. He sowed the crop again, but this time he was ready. As soon as a first bird descended, he killed it. It felt nice, he had finally done something. Birds did not stop coming, but he made a habit of killing a bird whenever he saw one eating his crop. After a few years, he killed them even when they were not eating his crop. He killed them merely because he had now become used to killing them. Every time he killed a bird, he buried its body in a corner of his field and put a gravestone alongside. On the gravestone he carved a little picture of him strangling the bird, a symbol of his victor...