A Trifling Matter

As the weekly meeting between God and the Architect of the Universe was about to conclude, the Architect shifted a little in his chair and asked, ‘Sir, if I may take a moment more, there’s a trifling matter I would like to discuss.’

God smiled, as he often does, and said, ‘Please go ahead. I have all the time in the universe.’

‘It’s with regards to planet number 17e^36, which is referred to by its inhabitants as…’, the Architect referred to The Compendium of The Universe and added, ‘…as — the Earth.’

‘The Earth.’, God tried to place a context to the name but to no avail.

Sensing God’s uncertainty, the Architect clarified, ‘It’s a planet in Galaxy no. 19,854 as per our classification of ‘Infant Mini-Galaxies’.’

‘Ah, got it’, said God. Now clearly, he wasn’t any closer to placing any context to the name of the planet. However, he surely understood that this planet was only as good as a needle in a haystack. Or worse. He also understood the Architect’s choice of the word — trifling. ‘Alright, go on.’ he said.

‘Sir, there have been various requests from this planet —’

‘Various?’, God interrupted.

‘Yes sir, various.’

‘I thought the planet was rather small.’

‘Indeed sir, it is small. To be fair, a pore on a giant actually.’

‘And yet, various?’, God was surprised.

‘Yes, sir. It seems Humans are —’

‘Humans?’

‘One of the resident species on the Earth, sir.’, replied the Architect, as patient as ever.

‘Which means there are other species on the planet?’

‘Around 21 million, sir’, the Architect had to refer to The Compendium again.

‘Any requests from these non-human species?’, asked God.

‘Oh no, no sir. The last I remember, the non-human species had no complaints except excessive human-intervention in their lives.’ 

‘So Humans are demanding and intervening, is it?’

‘Very much, sir. In fact, they exhibit more of such characteristics which, unfortunately, you will gather during the course of our current discussion. So I shall be less explicit about them.’ 

‘Oh, interesting,’ God chuckled and said, ‘Please go on.’ 

‘So as I was saying, Humans claim that they are struggling with certain distressing matters and thus have requested your help.’ 

‘What kind of matters?’, God was curious. 

‘Sir, mostly self-inflicted. This race has been fraught with feuds since its genesis. As these Humans have untamed love for supremacy, they perennially find ways to fight. However, the matters have come to a stage that it now threatens the very harmony of the entire race.’ 

‘What could possibly be self-inflicted and yet threatening the harmony of a race? Please elaborate with an example, if you would.’ 

This was the detestable part the Architect wished to avoid. The matters he was about to convey were so ludicrous, that the thought of explaining them to God made the Architect sweat. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed it gently on his forehead. He then looked into a report and began, ‘Matters like colour.’ 

God looked at the Architect in surprise, laughed heartily and quipped, ‘Why, don’t tell me a portion of them thinks purple is superior to magenta? That’s hilarious.’ 

‘No sir, the race has gone far beyond the fundamentals like appreciation of nature’s beauty. Here, the colour refers to skin colour.’ 

‘Skin colour? Blimey, are we saying that certain humans belittle others because of different skin colours?’

‘Yes sir’, the Architect wished he weren’t having this discussion. 

‘Please arrange for them to discover that skin colour is merely a pigmentation due to exposure to varying degrees and intensities of light and other environmental factors. That should do.’

‘Sir, I fear, they already know it.’ 

‘Yet?’, God was astonished. ‘Tell me and I beg you to tell me, is there any other species in this Universe that does fight basis colour? Does a brown dog bark at another for being white? Does a lush green tree despise one with yellow leaves? Or do magenta Geruntines banish purple ones out of their territories?’ 

‘No sir. It’s a phenomenon not observed universally. Queer are the ways of Humans, sir.’ 

‘Baffling. What other issues?’, God asked.

‘Sir, Countries.’

God gestured with a hand demanding an explanation.

‘Humans draw fictional lines on the Earth and call these lines ‘Borders’. Borders in turn secure imaginary pieces of lands which Humans term as Countries. They take excessive pride in their Countries and treat others as their enemies. Then few humans, under the garb of leadership of these imaginary entities, try to prove their supremacy over others leading to a constant fear of wars. The fear of war makes them develop weapons, increasingly lethal. Most countries suffer from the anxiety of not knowing how lethal the weapons of its enemies are. Soon it becomes a race to create the most destructive weapons. I hear there are weapons capable of wiping out enemy countries in a flash.’

‘My goodness, hold on please. Why create, in the first place, such divisions of so-called Countries? What purpose could they possibly serve?’ 

At this question, the Architect couldn’t help but let out a sigh and said, ‘Ironically, the concept was created to symbolize and promote unity. A country is expected to unite all Humans staying within its boundaries since they all share the same history, culture, language and other such factors. So the Humans make their young ones believe that this commonality binds them to their country-men. That, as far as I can understand, is the simplest reason for the existence of this concept.’ 

‘That is good, because if that be so, then the colour of two humans in the same country should not matter.’, God assessed.

‘Doesn’t work that way sir.’ 

‘Does it not? Shouldn’t the Country be bigger than Colour?’ 

‘Queer are the ways of Humans, sir. However, what has been observed is that if a Country faces a crisis then generally other discriminants take a backseat and the crisis unites the country-men. But in routine life, Country induced unity takes a back seat and other discriminants like Colour surface their heads. So absence of a collective crisis makes way for a factional crisis.’

‘Oh hoho,’ God was thoroughly impressed with the Architect’s ability to simplify the issue, ‘Collective crisis versus factional crisis! Wonderful. So tell me, must Humans always face some crisis to forget others?’

‘Oh yes, they must. They have an ironic fascination towards crises. As a side note, there’s a story of Aladdin’s crisis. I wanted to observe Human behaviour in an environment where every wish of theirs was granted. So, on an experimental basis, I sent a Genie to fulfil every wish of Aladdin. In a fabulous rags-to-riches story, Aladdin became a king of an empire from a petty street thief. All material happiness lingered at his toes. Yet, in due course, Aladdin became miserable with the thought that all his happiness was a result of a Genie’s blessings — that on his own, he counts for nothing. This hopeless thought led him to an identity crisis. You see sir, give them everything, yet Humans will manufacture crises for themselves. The penchant is infinite.’

By now, God was a little restless. He filled a chalice with nectar to the brim and asked the Architect to continue.

‘Then there’s this burning issue of Religion, rather superiority of religion. This seems to be the mother of all and it leads Humans to all sorts of troubles. In the name of religion, there are killings, riots, wars and what not.’

‘And religion means?’, God asked sipping his divine drink.

‘Pardon me my Lord, I am little unclear about this one. Religion, in my limited understanding’ — the Architect cleared his throat— ‘is a set of doctrines Humans believe make them…,’ the Architect paused and searched for an appropriate explanation.

‘Make them?’, God stopped sipping the drink and asked out of anticipation.

‘Humans believe it makes them, sort of, reach….You.’

‘Reach ME? That is preposterous! Don’t they understand that this universe is a part of me and I am every bit part of this universe? If they seek within, I am with them. All the time!’ 

‘Sir, please don’t ask me to justify Humans’ ways. As I said earlier, queer are the ways of Humans.’ 

‘Oh come now, I am not asking you to justify. I am trying to understand myself. It surely is bizarre. One hopes that the beliefs created for higher realisations may have diverse means but must have a common aim. And those who have common aims of seeking the higher truth cannot be divided, can they be?’

‘Sir, queer-’

‘Oh yes. Queer are the ways of Humans. You told me that. Is that all?’, God asked. 

‘By no means sir, there’s a full list.’ The Architect bowed and handed over a parchment to God which enlisted all the ‘distressing’ matters faced by the humankind. God went through it in detail. It had all the evils that made God screw his face with distaste. Then He folded the parchment and his smile was back. 

‘My dear Architect, this race needs an over-the-air update of our latest Acceptance module. What version is this race running on?’ 

The Architect referred to The Compendium yet again and replied, ‘Acceptance-4.08.’ 

‘What?!’, God thundered that made the universe shiver with fright. ‘The universe has reached an almost trillionth update on this module and this puny race is on fourth version! What were you doing all this time? Just because they are insignificant does not mean the updates are not meant for them!’ 

With his characteristic calmness, the Architect answered, ‘Pardon me sir, but that’s the issue I want to highlight. Our updates attach to a core called ‘Conscience‘. However, humans have been infected by an anti-program called ‘Arrogance’. It’s like matter and anti-matter. In the case of Humans, Arrogance has almost completely taken over the Conscience and whatever updates we send, Humans reject those through Arrogance.’ 

‘Pity, such pity’, God shook his head. ‘Send a cleaner of Arrogance then.’ 

The Architect gulped and said, ‘We did try it on a sample of individuals, on a circumstantial basis though. We scooped away their power, position, wealth, skills, looks — whatever fuelled their Arrogance. But once the source of Arrogance vanished, the samples lost any will to carry on. They were so drunk on Arrogance, that it defined them. So when you clean them of it, what remains is just a vessel of flesh and bones — a zombie. If we send a clean-up of Arrogance for the entire race, the Earth will be left with roaming Zombies.’ 

‘Oh. Oh. What have they done to themselves!’ God said darkly. Then he thought for a moment and looked at the Architect, ‘Time for the FJ?’ 

‘I think so.’ the Architect seconded. 

‘Please go ahead.’ God closed the matter. 

The Architect peeped into The Compendium. Under the race Humans was a section, hitherto unfilled, Final Judgement (FJ). As he neatly began filling in the section, he reached the last query: Destroyed by ____________.

The Architect wondered, looked up at God and asked: ‘By an Asteroid, sir?’

‘Oh no nono. An asteroid will affect other innocent species, too. Besides, I don’t want to waste any of my resources on this task. Let it be something I didn’t create, something I am not capable of conceiving,’ God got up from his throne and left.

The Architect went about his task calmly. He very well knew the creations of God and what lesser mortals could conceive on their own. So he thought for a second, smiled cunningly and then in the most beautiful, calligraphic writing, completed the FJ:

‘Destroyed by Hatred.’