Peace

Being ambitious is futile if one has no contentment with their achievements. To continue to seek everything we wish for leads to a spiral of failure.

“Peace” by R. S. Chintalapati tells the story of two ambitious brothers, but only one of them has contentment. Find out what happens to each of them after their succession.

---

Illustrated by Sravani Dhulipala

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom named Indivisible. The King of Indivisible ruled for more than thirty years in peace and prosperity and now intended to crown his successors. However, Gods blessed him with twins and he knew that both of them had an equal right to be crowned.

So the King planned to divide his kingdom and give each of his sons a portion based on their characters. The elder one in the King’s opinion was more into war and conquering while the younger one was more about welfare and good quality of life.

So he gave the elder son the northern part of the kingdom which was self-sufficient with food, army and resources. He gave the younger son the southern part of his kingdom which was not as prosperous as the northern part and also lacked rainfall, sanitation and basic needs.

Both the sons accepted what was given to them without any objections. The elder one boosted with resources and the army started waging wars on one neighbouring kingdom after another. He increased the taxes to ensure the army got paid well alongside selling resources to the southern kingdom in return for gold.

The younger one paid a good amount of gold to acquire farm animals and many slaves. He started by helping the farmers and ensured proper sanitation was established one city at a time. With food and health increasing, people became more productive. Alongside this, the younger one refurbished universities to educate as many people as possible.

While his brother waged wars, the younger brother started building an army to defend his boundaries and even conquered a small kingdom that separated his kingdom from the sea. This kingdom earnt him territory and food.

With this achievement, most of the other kings started noticing the younger brother’s growth. They knew having him as a friend would help them and offered him an alliance. Within no time, most of the elder brother’s enemies were now in alliance with the younger brother.

With the alliance, trade began and with that, the southern province started becoming rich. They reach such a point that the people’s tax has become almost null. Soon after that, many monuments, forts, towers, docks and garrisons were built in the southern province.

As he grew, he advised his elder brother to stop his battles and join him to grow together. However, the elder brother declined since he liked to conquer rather than prosper in peace. After many pleas, the younger brother knew he couldn’t make his brother stop. So he declared war against him and defeated him to dethrone him and unite his father’s kingdom again.

Even then the elder brother never understood his mistake or learnt the lesson that war destroys but peace makes one prosper.

---

Credits

This contribution is edited by Sreekar Ayyagari & illustrated by Sravani Dhulipala.

---

Product

This flash fiction is available as paperback & ebook.

Buy Book

Your Opinion?

• Excellent
• Good
• Average
• Bad