One night.......

One night, he decided to get out of the usual ornateness of his lavish lifestyle. He wanted to see the real world, being the prince he could breeze-through the castle. He felt the gentle wind touching his face, the smell of grass flowers left him mesmerized,the huge canvas of night sky lit with thousands and thousands of stars rendered him speechless!

He wanted to see more, the world outside the castle was so beautiful! He couldn't think of a single reason why his father must have had him banned from leaving the castle?!

He was now walking through the street and heard the unusual voice. The voice literally ripped him apart! “what sort of noise is that?!”, he thought. As he was approaching towards the source, he saw a bunch of people discussing about the tragic thing that was happened to a very wealthy merchant. The screams were of a lady standing besides the pyre. The prince didn't understand anything; how could he?! He had never seen the cry,the sorrow, never he had experienced the fear of losing someone nor the pain !

Prince: What's going on?

A random person in crowd: can't you see?!! Finally his day had come, the merchant died. All the money he gathered by hours of work with sweat and blood is of no value now. The money, wealth nothing can save you from death!! But my sympathy lies with this poor lady,his wife, now she's left alone!! This is life dear boy, this is life!!!!!

Price was now flabbergasted! He couldn't bear to brunt of seeing death !!!!!! This was unexpected!!!!!!

Why someone has to die?!— Prince

Becuse life has to end somewhere!!!!— The random person

This isn't fair at all!!!!! What will his wife do now?! Why should something end such abruptly?! Immortality is the only way. A person with such a wealth,such a good heart deserves to be immortal!— The prince

It's actually good that life has got some end point, otherwise you would live with all the regrets, the deeds of youe past, the pain of seeing your loved once die and you being helpless just have to live with an illusion of this all put together to an end! Tell me dear Prince Siddhartha, could you live such a miserable life?!-The random person

How could you say all these things so surely ?! You are wrong!!! But wait,…how do you know my name?!— The prince

Trust me Siddhartha, you'll one day understand the eternal truth, the absolute crystal clear truth of life!!!! You're destined to bring the peace to this materialistic world . Afterall, to begin a new journey, you have to leave from where you are standing! Knowing your destination is a necessity ,it's just worthless to continue drifting in this unending ocean of sins called life full of hopelessness!!! You'll remember my words, immortality is the curse dear Prince, it's a curse.

Said Ashwathama(The random stranger).

For those who don'tknow the context,

Siddhartha is Gautam Buddha.

And Ashwathama is a character from mahabharat who was cursed to become immortal and it is believed that till now he is wandering in the forests of narmada-bank area seeking to help the needy ones so that he can finally have death!

                          - shruti joshi
(I'm just a translator.....original story is written by Dr.G A Kulkarni
Reference-The Book सांजशकुन)