99 Palms: Horn OK Please Read Free Page B

Ashoka used missiles, rockets, slingshots, peashooters, yo-yos, nuclear, thermal and biological weapons to decimate the armies of Kalinga. The battle took place right here over the fields you see yonder, where more than one hundred thousand soldiers and civilians died. The soil turned bloody red after the battle. This is a cursed place…”
    “True that. This place is sure cursed if countless people died. Add the two hundred bucks we are supposed to give you. But from where did such advanced weaponry come into being in those barbaric times?” Goose asked Nitwit with the innocence of a child.
    “You mean we don’t live in barbaric times now?” Derek shot back.
    “I cannot tell you that, I don’t know for sure, Sir. But I can tell you this much that Emperor Ashoka decimated the Kalinga army purely to expand his kingdom. It was greed and megalomania that drove him to butcher thousands. They must have had some dark magic and wicked sorcery to cause devastation of such magnitude. Our ancient civilizations were far more advanced than we can imagine today, Sir”, said Nitwit, distinctly over the top.
    “OK, get back to facts, Nitwit, spare me the yarn”, said Hound, throwing a pebble at him. An imperfect pebble, for sure, for he was busily gathering more pebbles, continuing his hunt for the perfect pebble.
    “OK. Ashoka’s father, Bindusara, had started this drive of colonial expansion from his home base in a place called Magadha. Since the State of Kalinga would not accept subservience to the Mauryan empire, Emperor Ashoka took it upon himself as the war of a lifetime to prove his worth.  After eight years of taking over the throne, he fought to win a battle that his grandfather and father seemed to have lost. They had failed to annex the state of Kalinga to the Mauryan empire. Bloody power hungry savages then! It is said that ten thousand of his army died in the battle. Everything was destroyed. That was the war of Kalinga. This was the ruthless face of Emperor Ashoka”, said Nitwit with obvious disgust that was evident on his face.
    “The conquest of Kalinga was very important to for the Mauryas. Kalinga stood in the way of the southern routes from the Ganges and it was also a very powerful and rich, commercial port. It was the greed for money and lust for power that drove the Mauryas crazed”, said Derek, surprisingly attentive as he bowled us over with his bits of knowledge. He never failed to amaze us with his sudden bursts of intelligence.
    Hound continued to be more interested in the pebbles as he seemed to be examining them very closely. He walked over to the ruins that lay beyond the tree and returned with a handful again.
    “What are you doing, bro, collecting pebbles in case our GPS conks off?” I asked as I saw Hound distracted.
    “Nothing, I’m listening intently to Nitwit. Keep going, I’ll tell you later”, said Hound as he continued examining the pebbles carefully.
    “To mount the throne, the young Ashoka seemed to have killed ninety-nine of his own brothers. However, the Tibetan historian, Taranatha, mentions that he put six of his brothers to the sword. Six or ninety-nine, it still makes him a controversial tyrant then. All his brothers were born to different mothers for polygamy was a norm then. He was never the rightful heir to the throne of the Mauryas”, spoke Nitwit as he passed a personal verdict on historical facts.
    “Was he really that cruel as the books say, Nitwit?” asked Derek curiously as he folded he umbrella back. It has stopped drizzling now. The clouds were still there, gray and overcast, and this would be just a temporary respite.
    “Certain Buddhist scriptures state that Ashoka earned the title of ‘Chandasoka’ (Ashoka, The Cruel) after he burnt five hundred of his concubines for being disrespectful of his physical features. Sometimes, one wonders if all this is true or fabricated. Historians certainly tend to distort facts when they wish to portray the