" Give of your love but let not others take it from you.”
“What is this kind of love?”
“It’s like filling a river and not caring who drinks from it because when need be you’ll fill it again.”
“And what if I wish to drink from someone else’s river?”
“Nazanin-am, my sweetest, we’re all like small rivers and streams, starting at a higher plane from behind the mountains of our desires to be with somebody, and we start alone. A stream, a river, aspires to become something more, and so it must bend, not only its way as it cuts into the land, but also its stature. Only then can it hope to join something bigger, grander. But forget not, azizam, not all rivers reach the ocean. The venerable might of the Indus River–the cradle of our civilization and the catafalque of our neighbours–no longer carries itself to the ocean at the Port of Karachi; the river no longer feeds as it once used to, all because it has fed too many, for too long; it has run dry from overuse. It can no longer take in any more lovers. Before anything else, it must first fill itself again. There’s always some water lying at the depths of the driest land, in the earth’s mantle. This water must come to the surface. The philosophy of all life, as an old Red Indian said, starts with water. "

― Ashish Khetarpal , The Watchdog and Other Stories