She glowed in a brilliant green luminescence. One day a beautiful Goddess appeared, drenched in the mantle of the earth. Others were not inter-connected to higher reckonings. Only some lamps were predestined to greater glories it seemed. Not as Aladdin's had illustrated, when summoned.

But try as she might and however harder she scrubbed, she was compelled to accept with fine distinction, that no magic genie would mysteriously appear through the bowels of the lamp, spreading red sparkle and aura. She would wipe her lamp clean and polish it with an old rag, till it glowed brightly. For who but a 'mad dog' or a 'wise fool' would light a lamp in broad daylight? The last laugh. World was a place for fables and legends, a man of virtue leading a frugal life, had vainly roamed through the streets of Sinope, in search for an honest man, in search for the speaker of truth, a truth he would never find, even when the sun of burnished gold was brightly flaming, and the moon of It was a leftover from a bygone past of a former Deepavali, oh-so-long-ago. An odd forgotten curio which she had retained, as a much wanted heirloom, one she could never let go.ĭaily she nursed her treasure, lighting the lamp, as the apocryphal story had foretold, attributed oh-so-long-ago to Diogenes Laertius the Cynic. Everywhere he went, his prophetic lamp of ancient wisdom had accompanied him in his philosophical wanderings. When lit, it glowed, with a flickering light of the rise and fall of blue embers, gauntly gashing. But she had chosen the pocketbook world of painted apricots, instead of partaking of the real ones. The earth had offered up its wisdom to a child. Everywhere she looked, an unquiet greeted her for the search that would not end. She lingered in expectation, waiting, watching, as the sea-gulls dipped and soared in loud Everywhere she turned the ghostly outlines of beasts and brutes followed. She watched the ebb and swell of the cerulean waves in quiet melancholy.

Little Sita walked to the edge of the sands slowly. 'A child has beaten me in plainness of living.' - Diogenes Laertius of Sinope

Diogenes with his lamp