Disgruntled Thirst

A bird tweets at an interval sitting on the window frame. Another bird joins the former, and begins chirping like a novice flautist. Rishi turns on his bed uneasily, pulling the blanket to cover his ears. The wall clock rings the bell, jolting to the sound of chirping bird that startled him awake at 5:30 am in the morning. Mounting light from the dawn is clearly visible from partly open windows. The moisture, condensed on the delicate glass of windows, is not as solid as the rime of uncomfortable winter; but the wetness in the air imprinted the glasses blur if a pair of mortal eye glances from there.

Rishi sighs, stretching his hands, which bent like a bow at the back of his chest, and a puff of white vapour, diffusing from his mouth on looking at the photo of Mahadeva, framing on the wall of his bed room. While his fingers, itching beards down to his chin. It reveals to you; that his face is composed. His head is dense with straight hairs upward like million tiny antennas, receiving connectivity from the space. The softness of his unshaved beards indicating, that he recently became an adult from the secondary young stage of the earthly man, after completing elementary childhood. On ambling few steps, he shakes his shoulders. And bending his fingers gently one by one, the sound of bones rises like there were cracks, parting into pieces.

After he opens the door, the cat, Mini rubs its soft bristles on his leg, turning round and round until Rishi pours milk on a bowl for its breakfast. Then he grabs a fistful grains, scattering these on the open ground from his room for the noisy birds.

His harp – phone vibrates displaying a message; the Aero shuttle will depart to New Delhi at 8:45 am from the shuttle – drome near to his house.

Sooner than Rishi can finish eyeing on the message, an astute voice of his mother forewarns him, ‘You are getting late, aren’t you? You should be ready by 6:00 am. I want you to do a crosscheck of essential stuffs; you packed for your intended visit to New Delhi.’

‘Mom! Today is Saturday, 7^th February, 2099, and I told you about my visit to New Delhi a week ago. So I am not late this time to pack my clothes, money cards, and the digital diary. Moreover, I have my harp – phone which I cannot forget to carry. Without it I will not be able to travel. In the meantime, please bake chapattis and fry green beans for today’s lunch. I will quickly return after taking a bath in the river. I will have my breakfast at the eatery of shuttle – drome, but I want to eat the chapattis at lunch, baked by only you!’

‘What about your dinner today?’ His mother asks, curiously. ‘Do not you want to eat tonight at family gathering? Your cousins will come to dine. They want you to be there as it is more than two years from the last winter, you have met them.’

‘I will not be able to attend them today. I have some changes in my plan.’ Rishi answers, gleefully. ‘My business partner Mr. Benedo invited me to stay at his place for two days besides the business proposal we will agree upon.’

‘Should you trust someone when you do not know about the person?’ His mother replies, ‘our Ancient Wisdom says if you are unaware of anyone’s family history, you should not blindly rely on the person. Whether you are going to do a business, making a new friend, you must well converse to the family background of a person. Our behavior is influenced as we are raised in a family.’

‘Ancient Wisdom has only relation to our level of intelligence, not to our family history, Mom!’

‘Is it how you comprehend?’

‘Absolutely not. The conclusion is drawn from the real instances of great men and women, whosoever left a footprint in human history. Neither all of them had renowned family backgrounds.’

‘I must speculate then Ancient Wisdom has no place in your dealings.’

‘That’s incorrect. I follow it, but not entirely as it was scripted.’

‘Half learnt wisdom can jeopardize everything, ceasing to our wealth, reputation and finally our life.’ His mom returns. ‘What compel you not following it, entirely?’

‘Time and Society.’

‘I can acquiesce to your perspective if I really know if your modified version of Ancient Wisdom renders an accurate outcome as we expect as civilized human beings, Rishi.’

‘Yes it absolutely does, but modified version is not what I mean to explain. I follow it according to place and time, which are inconsistent. There are humans who do not live within family bonding. So I focus on individuals, not to their family history.’

‘Then I must say they are savage, and must bear with mental deformity. Is Mr. Benedo one of them?’

‘I would say this is unfair to call Mr. Benedo a savage. I have verified his data from global identity profile.  If you are curious to know about him, I would say he is a business man who pays his taxes on time, and never had a criminal record in the past, neither a one he has now. Moreover, he donates a portion of his income to children education fund. He asked me if our family is still following the Ancient Wisdom that our lineal forefather had scripted for us. Although, Mr. Benedo does not practice these customs while he is being from the same family identity of my lineal forefather had, but he felt good when I answered him positively. Only thing is different; that his girlfriend is a humanoid machine. New Delhi is so progressive that man and machine live under the same roof.’

‘Very strange’

‘That’s correct. I haven’t seen one of them’

‘Let me go to the river.’ He ends the conversation and heads to the river to take a bath, and the priest of the Omkar temple exchanges a well wish for his visit to the capital of India. Rishi is a person whose mind and throbbing heart always engage in grappling to trust if there is God when he thinks about the life from the outer world, but willingly he surrenders his soul in the faith of God, following the devotion of his mom, who calls him, a gift to her from Mahadeva, the God of all Gods in Hindu religion.

On returning from the river, his mom narrates, ‘I have packed the chapattis and fried beans for your lunch. You should carry a water bottle.’

‘I will carry the lunch, you cooked for me. There is no profound reasoning in carrying a water bottle for a fifteen minutes journey from our home. Aero shuttles, run through reverse pressure of electromagnetic field of earth, which is powered by electricity, burning from plutonium, and it may cause electrifying effect on the drinkable water bottle. However, I am unsure of such things. I have amassed information from the digital library of Aero shuttle; that a voyager is not allowed in carrying liquid substances on board, but the individual can send these through cargo Aero shuttle by paying extra charges. I have only a rucksack packed for today’s journey. What you say then?’

‘What will you do in case you feel thirsty?’ His mom says. ‘I came to know it from your aunt, who heard it from your grand mom that drinkable water crisis in New Delhi began later in 2040, when your grandfather returned to his ancestral home, retiring from his job. You will stay there for two days, but you should have a bottle of water before you locate any store to purchase a drinkable water bottle.’

Rishi chuckles on hearing her, and replies, ‘You will not have to feel unease about my trip, imagining a traveller from 2040. I have carefully noted down the places, where water is available for a common man in New Delhi.’

He holds his backpack on his hand, strolling to the shuttle – drome close to his house. Rishi looks back at his mom. She dressed in grey sari. Her profound face is reflecting sorrow as if Rishi will forget her on his arrival to the unfamiliar land. Her eye lashes are wet while silently looking at Rishi’s departure from the entrance door to her home, where Rishi was born, grew and became owner of his independent decisions. Rishi crosses the main road and the trail of her fading away from his sight. He reaches to the shuttle – drome, deciding not to eat anything before boarding in the Aero shuttle. He turns on the earth view monitor after taking off, but unable to find his house from the cloudy sky.

The Aero shuttle gets landing at the Sky shuttle – drome near to old parliament buildings in New Delhi as the vintage IGI airport has transformed to supersonic outer space missile launch station for Armed forces of India.  It’s 9’O clock in the morning, his wrist watch tells him. The lounge is isolated except few faces; those are busy with their super visual lippy computers.  He ignores their presence as none of them are familiar to him, and slowly crossing the lounge to reach at the place, where a round shaped glass is fitted for viewing the skyline. The skyline of New Delhi is enormous, broadening its horizon to never ending multi storied buildings. On the wall of the tallest building, the independence tower casement windows, emerging like tiny black squares on a milky white surface of a rectangular box. The city, New Delhi is the capital of world’s largest participative democracy, India, besides its own historical identity as a political hub, where many kingdoms were built and destroyed by the fate of time.

Standing there for how long, it was passed, hardly he could remember. The intended purpose of his visit suddenly spanks on his distracted mind. Hurriedly, he gets onto an elevator to reach at the exit gate for a security checking. He activates harp – phone sensors for the city entrance ticket reader, and a custom officer wearing a blue turban indicates him to stand near a biological scanning mirror. The officer gets a matching of his biological reference to his global profile database, and a green light indicating his clearance.

‘Mr. Rishi, wait. You need to have a city guide chip for your harp – phone.’ The officer says to him.

‘Why is it needed?’

‘You will not find a human guide here, and hardly any city dweller strolls on the pavement.’ The officer replies. ‘In case you need any assistance locating places, the city guide chip will assist you like a real human.’

‘How much I need to pay for it?’

‘It’s free for the first time travellers.’

‘Thanks for the information, officer. I have city guide map and desire responsive system on my harp – phone. Moreover, I am guarded by global positioning system; that will inform me right direction to the location whenever I seek a help.’

‘Are you sure? You do not require the city guide chip. I am employed here from last five years, but you are the first traveller  who is entering to the city without a city guide chip.’

‘You are a good human, proficient at work. Although, I came from eastern province, but I have done a research on how to avoid difficult situations while wandering through the city.’

‘All right. Wishing you a happy stay in New Delhi.’

‘Thanks again. Glad to hear it.’

After leaving the Aero shuttle – drome, he decides to set off a leisure walk instead of getting into a travelling taxi, waiting outside for the commuters. The city stands before him as architected for the concept advanced life which has seen huge backlash from the urbanization to its sophistication. The solitude on the neat and clean pathway acts as exhilaration, rising up on his veins. Money, Power, and Growth, the three essentials of a nation has changed New Delhi from a neglected capital of a country to a super power, that safe guard the value of human life, following the path of the father of the nation, M.K Gandhi, the great compassionate man ever lived on this earth.

Last week, he saw a documentary film telecast by the County Life Channel’s second episode from 200 years back. The visuals are still active in his mind. As he reminisce the images, his delight for those past moment caves in to this place where he is wandering. The city of Ghalib and the Kingdom of Mughal emperors have somewhere buried underneath the gigantic skyline.

While looking uncertainly now to the right, now to the left, Rishi recalls for a glimpse of the show, trapping himself into fantasies as if he can see it; that a horse pulled cart is running on the middle of the pavement, the shoppers are haggling with vegetable vendors in Friday market, near to the end of the pathway. A kid is walking with his elder brother, and a little girl is yelling for a wooden doll. She wants to have it to her possessions. A group of children is returning back from their school as they complete their education by attending an institution. A tramp is drinking a glass of water from the community water reservoir, and one of the students has given him two pieces of Jalabi, purchasing it from the sweet meat vendor, whose flabby belly is fastened by a towel.

Now, Rishi is wandering to the city where Aero shuttle replaced horse pulled cart. Prior to commuting by Aero shuttle, there were cars, buses, trains which are no longer the mode of transportation as no one is ready to waste time for commuting slowly due to invention of better technologies. The concept of Friday market transformed to mega shopping malls during weekends. Haggling replaced to the concept of fixed price only. Little girls are no longer cry for a wooden doll. Their brains are matured by inserting extra grey cells before their birth. Most of the children do not attend an institution to complete their education. Different shapes of laser monitor are connected to the web net, and anyone can take up a course, enrolling to 24*7 study channels to complete schooling from their home. Self mode robotic teachers can answer any questions ask by the student. Electronic paint and brush can paint any imagination in digital mode within fraction of second’s thorough visualization by brain reader. Young children do not invest time for artistic representation. They keep themselves busy, exploring outer world by connecting to web net and humanoid machines.

Rishi hinders for a moment after his harp – phone vibrates in his pocket. He slides it carefully to read the message, ‘you are near to the Chill Berry Shop.’ His harp – phone can act on his desire to hire a private Aero shuttle, sending a message to his mom, booking a seat in any city pubs, reserving a seat for a movie on digiplex theatre. The new recharge coupon, he purchased for one hundred INRA, is better known as Indo – Russian – American dollars, which has given him a privilege of location finder responsive system with Map and direction, and useful tips on life threatening situations while visiting Indian capital.

On the left hand side, he locates a laser board displaying the name of Chill Berry Shop. By reaching a little closer to the door, a blue light, portraying three dimension hologram of a man asks him, ‘How may I assist you, Sir?’

‘I have an appointment with Mr. Benedo to finalize a business deal. I came from eastern province. Please let him know Rishi is here.’

‘Sir, you are late by ten minutes. Let me inform Mr. Benedo if he is free from his medication. He informed me about your visit at 10:30 AM.’ The hologram answers distastefully.

Rishi avoids replying to the life less machine, when its voice tells him to deposit his rucksack in the vault at the entrance hall before riding on the room elevator. A door opens soundlessly. It is made by recycled plastic packets of Yummy Chips. This city is reliant on all recycle material due to deficiency of natural resources.

As he steps in, the door gets closed, and the surface beneath his feet seems rolling. He surprisingly revels himself standing before Mr. Benedo, who greets him in a moderate tone, ‘Hey, welcome, how was your trip?’ Mr. Benedo is sitting on a wheel fitted couch which is used by a person, whose legs are bent in paralysis.

‘It was fascinating, especially walking on the pavement. This city is so well planned, and different; that it evokes disparity in my mind from an episode of a television show, I watched recently.’ He replies, cheerfully.

‘If I am well connected to your thought, you must be talking about the second episode from the Country Life. Am I right?’ Mr. Benedo tells rather smartly.

‘How do you know it, Mr. Benedo? Is it true that you are good in mind reading or it is merely a guess? I know our face, and eyes are a mirror of actions we do, and our brain works as a magnetic recorder. We need to stimulate our sensors to decode it from face and eyes.’

‘There is no mind reading behind it, Rishi. You should not be surprised to know; that I have accessed your global identity profile form the citizen database before fixing an appointment for today. Although, you came from a far model village of India, but I can tell from your level of intelligence; that you must have verified my data prior informing to your mother. My global profile has been verified by someone who did not log on through his own id, in order not to leave a trace of information of the verifier. You have filled your section of preferred television show as the Country Life, and you are an admirer of Mirza Ghalib. I know you do not understand his language, but you must have read an English version of his writ. If I say you the name of the episode, it ends with ‘The city of Ghalib.’ Mr. Benedo smirks with his shapeless eye brows together.

Rishi attains to a sense of apology to the elderly man, whose pedantic face is shinning like a detective after resolving a cyber crime committed by a curious science student. From the very early days of his childhood, Rishi learnt not to hide any act whenever he had done it for his experiment. As long as he can think of a misdeed, when he has taken a disguise to get information about a man who is paralysed and does not have a family like normal humans; perhaps, it was the first time, he did to Mr. Benodo.

‘Mr. Benedo – I expect you did not mind it as I have verified your details.’

‘Your heart is pure like a child. Do not feel repented. You did the right thing. First verify then trust someone.’ Mr. Benedo interrupts his conversation as he coughs till his chicks, turning pale; and again returning to where he paused. ‘You have set up a water plant at your place. This is an excellent business idea. Most of the Delhites have never taken a sip of natural water. Only water is available here is completely purified sea water from Bay of Bengal. Autonomous provinces have set up a deadlock to supply water to this city. You must be feeling thirsty. What can I bring in?’

‘I want to drink a glass of water.’ Rishi replies.

‘I am sorry. Right now my shop does not have a bottle of water. I can only offer you drinking soda or Beer whichever you like to drink.’ Mr. Benedo says rather melancholy.

‘That is all right then. I will find a nearby shop where I can buy a bottle of water.’ Rishi answers.

‘Let us fix the business deal very quickly.’ Mr. Benedo discontinues the conversation after wrenching his wrist watch, and a three dimension transparent visual arises between their gazes.’ He avers ‘Here is the deal Rishi. You will supply two hundred thousand bottles of drinking water every week, and I will pay you five INRA for each bottle.  For surety, I am depositing ten percent of total cost to your account. Please acknowledge the acceptance by your finger print as there is no alteration on our deal, we have discussed on the phone.’

Then Mr. Benedo calls his girlfriend, Dollaea to let her know about the business deal.

Dollaea appears storming the silence with her sparking smile at Mr. Benedo. Rishi could not see her face before she gets introduced to him. Dollaea has an artificial skin and computer chip fitted memory with extraordinary beauty. The luster of her diamond earnings precisely narrates she is expensive to maintain.

After she shakes hand with him, he feels a momentary terror to see her if he is staring to an eye – catching ghost. There is no warmness on her palms; her eyes do not have an expression when she grins. Her skin is smooth like a tanned rexine, without any wrinkles. Rishi has never seen this companion robot at his birth place where life is meant to live together as a family and the affection of a man and a woman remains intact to their hearts until they die. Inquisitively, he monitors each and every movement of Dollaea, who turns to Mr. Benedo, and says, ‘Do you want me to bake breads for two?’

‘Rishi—have you eaten anything since morning?’ Mr. Benedo questions him.

‘Thanks for your courtesy; I prefer eating chapattis baked by my mom, and I am not feeling hungry but thirsty. Since, you don’t have a water bottle. It is all right.’ Rishi replies.

Dollaea is quite puzzled to hear the conversation. Her artificial brain is snared by chapatti and mom, thirst.  Her scanning eyes stored relevant information of the biological reference as she looked at Rishi.  After searching synonyms of these words and implementing it to the environment surrounding to her, she joins the conversation.

‘You can drink a glass of beer, Rishi. Your gullet is dry. You are too young as I can count your age from your beating heart.’

‘My heart! Fantastic. You lie.’

‘How?’

‘Did you take my permission to scan my bones before you could come to know about my age?’

‘That’s how my advanced programming language works.’ Dollaea states. ‘I have an active mind and flesh scanning system. I read humans like a book from their appearance without informing them. Let me clarify it to you. On my arrival, you get puzzled to find how a woman can be too perfect and beautiful. Later on you realize, I am nothing more than a self mode robot as my eyes has no expression. Color of it has not changed while grinning. Only thing you do not know; that I can spend my life like a normal human being without ageing and death.’

‘Do you feel embarrassed?’

‘I only know this word, Rishi. Only question is how and why?’

‘Then, you do not know about many attributes of human?’

‘Only thing, I do not know what emotion and thirst are, and how to adjust with different moods of human? But someday, my generations will learn these techniques when most of the earthly life will be wiped out due to lack of water. We will represent the life on this earth as humans are taking care of us.’  Dollaea ends without taking a breadth as she does not need it.

‘New Lady!’ Rishi says. ‘With due respect to you and to the invention of technologies, I must confer upon, the greatness to our ancestors who came from the outer world and genetically modified first life they brought to the earth. The life remained unattained by them for million years. The life struggled through earth’s atmosphere, molding it into different shapes. Finally we became the human, the new avatar of intelligent life as our ancestors were. Our struggle purged our weakness, renovating our will for highly advanced sensors; the effectiveness of it cannot be measured by any machine. It transmits through emotion which changes with every different usage, not ending to love, happiness, despair, affection, hate. The human life learnt it through struggling after abandoning by ancestors. Your generations will never learn it as you did not struggle for a life. There is no way you can insert it to advance humanoid robots. You can pretend to have it after many years as you will be reprogrammed, but will never find it among yourselves. You are simply responding to the commands you have in your memory. If my earth becomes barren due to lack of water, we all will die whether it is you or humans. To enlighten you the fact; that you need our help to develop yourself advance in changing atmosphere for your existence. Again you will not feel it, but we can.’

Dollaea, listening to the conversation turns her sight from Rishi to Mr. Benedo and says, ‘I want to go to the workshop tomorrow. A new concept, I need to inform to my inventors for advanced version of my generations.’

Rishi steals the moment of stillness in the faces of the couple by saying, ‘Well Mr. Benedo and Miss Dollaea, I need to go for a trip in the city. I may not come here tonight for staying as I need to attend my cousins at my home.  You have a nice day!’

After leaving the Chill Berry Shop, Rishi reaches to the lane, merely walking few hundred steps, he receives another message on the harp – phone, ‘You are crossing Hard Rock Pub.’ His mind strikes desire responsive system is activated on his harp – phone. The beep is displaying, ‘whisky and water.’  It will be the best option for him to drink a glass of water before mix into whisky.

He gets through the automated door that does not need a pull. The shining oak furniture, which were exported from the Ireland, and the tick plated wooden floor galvanizing an aspect of pub visitors; that only aristocrats are frequent visitors to this place for spending their time with wine and dine, and gossiping. His conjecture bears out certainty, detecting a group of companion robots and men are conversing among themselves, sitting on couches. Empty bottles of beer are lining on the table, close to their knees, appearing like they drink beer as their primary source of drinking.

He quietly pulls a chair; the sound of dashing on the wooden floor gets the attention of the waiter, whose clean shaved face looks as he used platinum razor to uproot his beards. The small man with quick alertness came to attend him in a greeting tone, ‘Welcome Sir. What would you like to have?’

’I want whisky, ice and water.’ Rishi answers. ‘Please keep the water pot here. I prefer to make a peg as per my taste of drinking.’

‘Sorry Sir, you can order as much as whisky you want, but there is no water available. If you ask for water, I would rather say, go for our sweet lemonade from the famous brand, Red Water, and it’s a free supplement with whisky.’

‘Ok, then bring a peg of whisky with Red Water.’

The waiter moves to bring order. Rishi has been feeling thirstier than he was at the time of conversing with Mr. Beneodo and Dollaea. As the waiter puts his peg on table, Rishi gulps the drink in one go. It goes down from his mouth like mildly burning his throat. The waiter was staring him as an uncultured man, pretending as an aristocrat, who does not know the manner of drinking in a tavern.

‘Anything else sir, I can bring for you?  The waiter inquires to know from Rishi.

‘That’s what all I needed. Please bring the bill.’

‘We do not have a paper bill. I can only transmit it to a super visual lippy computer. I do not see you have one with you.’

Rishi puts his harp – phone on table, and returns, ‘think this one as a super visual lippy computer, do click on send button.’

‘It’s working. Sir.’

‘Yes I know, 20 INRA has been transferred to the account of hard rock pub.’

‘I have not seen this model of super visual lippy computer. You have a good afternoon! Sir.’

The waiter returns to the counter as Rishi stands up to leave Hard Rock Pub.

He returns to the pavement to begin his search for a glass of drinking water besides exploring the city. He is felling better now, but his thirst remains disgruntled. The sky is clear, gesticulating absence of white clouds which is the root of rain water.  An excess aridity in the weather has been changing his skin from oily to ruggedness. Recalling exact dissimilarity in this place from his birth place, he keeps moving on. The potable water for life has never been a lack of resource at his village which is surrounded by a river. The rivulet flows from the stony mountain bed has been a source of life for all living creatures. During summer days when the sun socks moisture from the clumsy weather, forcing life to live in a hopeless state without water; his birthplace remains not only a heaven for humans but also to the thirsty birds, when their happiness, turning into chirps after drinking water, sinking dry feathers in the river.

It was more than two hours Rishi has been walking, and his body is suffering from initial stage of dehydration. All inhabitants of this place do not have a fixed time to flying by an Aero Shuttle in the city as crime is very less due to opulence society and free living concept. The pavement is not hoarded with humans as it is a natural trend in his village. His harp – phone is the only companion which is steering him to find a place for drinking water.

His eyes are sinking in the socket, and the lethargic mind is responding inappropriately. Things are moving very slowly from his vision. The sun is violent, making him extremely uncomfortable. There is no sweating from his body. He decides to sit at the corner of a building, and mutters to his harp – phone.

‘I have a desire to drink only water,

Guide me, guide me, oh! Please do me a favor.

No life lives here only robots have grown,

Help me, guard me, my harp – phone.’

‘Divert your mind from hallucination. I am a responsive system, not a human. You need to help yourself, safe guard yourself. Open you shirt; tie it up on your head and walking down to the left. Your search will end at the water research institute.’ A metallic voice from survival responsive system of his harp phone returns.

Rishi arrives close to the water life research institute. His harp – phone beeps, signalling him artificial smile on the screen; that his search ends here.

The building, in front of him, has an oval shape dotted with round black points. Hundreds of small glittering plates on the neck of the black spots are sensitive to sun rays. The plates are reflecting gleaming rays of sun on the black spots to generate electricity. His desire is rising high; that he can get a glass of water to drink as the building narrates its description as a research institute,  and moreover, the board engraved with ‘Sweet Water for Life’, leaving no question beyond the truth.  He knocks at the main entrance gate. A guard is sitting on a chair inside an igloo shaped room signals him to stop knocking.  The guard walks towards him ‘Are you looking for an address?’

Rishi holds his desire before getting into a conversation with the guard. His chin turns tougher in replying, ‘That’s not why I am here. I am keen to know if there is an aquarium where I can view sweet water fishes. I have been watching sea fishes for a long time, but never had a chance to see sweet water fishes. I will be grateful to you if you can help me.’

The guard resembles his question to the crazy scientist, Dr. Vora, who works at the lab. He always says, ‘Sweet Water for Life.’ Dr. Vora comes to the office at 6’o clock in the morning, but he never has been in a time schedule to go home. When he suffers from migraine due to excessive thinking, he ties his shirt on his head. A highly intellectual person, Dr. Vora, is trying hard, keeping varieties of river fishes alive for future generations. He has been doing a research to increase oxygen level in the rivers.

‘Please get your entry by standing at the camera.’ Our head scientist, Dr. Vora would be happier to welcome you at his lab. He is looking for volunteers to spread his message, not to pollute water.’ The guard replies to him. ‘You can go straight to the entrance hall. Dr. Vora works next to the aquarium room.’

Rishi is suffering from extreme dryness in his chest. The whisky, he drunk at Hard Rock Pub has muddled into his tissues, but his thirst for drinking water is uncontrollable. It was a time in his life; he senses the need of water in his living tissues. He is tired of walking, but his desire for drinking water, forcing him gets in to the entrance hall. There is an aquarium, and a shoal of fishes lures him to get a taste of water. The water looks fresh and chilled. He kicks hard on the wall of the aquarium, until he temporary collapses on the ground. The aquarium is made of bulky fiber, which is almost impossible to break by kicking on.  Now, his thirst has seemed never ending, his body sensors have been responding unsupportively to his leg and to his arms. On the very moment, he is nearer to get into sleeping; he diverts his mind by getting next to the place of ventilating air condition. He opens his mouth to breath.

An unknown fatigue overtly grasping his body as it can be squeezed into a small shape. With his remaining energy, he stands and pushes the aquarium wall by his shoulder.

He hears a human voice is yelling,’ Stop it here. Young man. What the hell are you doing?’

‘Who are you, real human or a humanoid robot?’

‘I am Dr. Vora, founder of this institution. Do you have any idea what you are trying to do? We have only few species of river fishes left on this earth, and this institute is the only safe place for them. If you would have broken the aquarium all of these species could have been dying due to no water.’

‘Sir, I am a traveller to your city. I have not drink water after I left my home this morning. I have been suffering from chronic dehydration. I will die if I do not get water to drink. What is important to you, human life or animal life?’

‘There was a time when humans were important to this earth, but it’s the greedy human who have destroyed forest, rivers, and they are now suffering from lack of natural resources. As a scientist, animal is more important to me, because if animal is there, human life will not wipe out from this earth.’

‘Enough, I am thirsty. Can I get a glass of water to drink?’

‘I smell a flavor of whisky from your mouth. It happens after you are drunk. You imagine useless things like you will die.’

‘Water please.’

‘You will not get purified water here. Young Man! All is chemically reach. Come with me to my Lab, I will show you truth about the water in this city.’

‘I cannot walk any longer. I have limited energy. Please bring water for me.’

‘Do you see the color of the water? Dr. Vora shows the test tube, holding on his left hand. It’s similar to liquid poisons. I am noticing pesticides, arsenic; acids contaminated it to extreme level. You will die if you drink it.’

Rishi looks at the test tube; his face is filled with pain. He asks Dr. Vora, ‘Do you know how far Hard Rock Pub is?’

 

*****The End****