KRISHNA CORIOLIS#4: Lord of Mathura (17 page)

‘Krishna!’ 

Balarama fought his way against the wind, reacting as lightning struck ground only yards from where he bent over, struggling to make his way to the spot where Krishna stood, buffetted by the elements. 

‘We have to do something.’

Krishna nodded. ‘Gather everyone close together and tell them to stay there. As close as possible.’

Balarama nodded and went back to do as Krishna had ordered, knowing better than to waste time and energy questioning or debating. This time there was no enemy for anyone to fight, only people to protect. 

Krishna stepped forward, looking for a good foot-hold. He stamped his foot on the ground, searching. Yes, this seemed a good spot. The ground here was packed earth, no layers of stone for several yards down. He looked around. The neighbouring area appeared much the same, none of the red veins or streaks that indicated igneous formations or solidified rock underground. 

The storm was growing insane with frenzy. He felt lightning strike him directly several times. It shook him, stopping his heart momentarily each time, and after the third or fourth time he thought he heard Radha cry out in concern, but perhaps that was only his imagination. The storm was too deafening to hear her cry, although he had no doubt she must be beside herself with anxiety for his well-being. 

He stamped his foot, settling for a relatively smooth flat patch of ground.

This will have to do. 

He offered up a brief prayer to Bhoodevi, asking her to lend her support. ‘These are your children I seek to preserve, Mother,’ he said. The wind tore the words from his lips before they could reach his own ears. But he knew that Mother Earth did not need words spoken aloud in order to hear them. She would do what she could by way of offering him support, both literal as well as figurative. The rest was up to him. 

He bent down, pushed his fingers into the earth, digging them deep inside, as deep as possible. With a mighty effort, he pulled, taking hold of the rocky base of Mount Govardhan and splitting it from the ground on which it lay. To his surprise, it broke away with far less effort than ought to have been possible. He knew then that Bhoodevi had indeed heard his prayer, was assisting and aiding him in his challenge. 

With renewed hope and vigor, Krishna bent down again and picked up the mountain. 

26

RADHA
gasped in wonderment as she saw Krishna pick up Mount Govardhan. Everyone reacted. It was a sight to behold. A boy picking up a mountain. For a long moment, nobody knew what to say or do. Even the Indra priests, gloating with pride at their deity’s vengeance, were stupefied. 

As Krishna raised up the entire mountain on his palms, Balarama shouted to the people and animals huddled in the ashram clearing. ‘Come closer together! Everyone.’

They did as he asked, huddling even closer together. The Indra priests found themselves being pushed towards the group of Chandalas and reacted at once. ‘We will not pollute ourselves by standing near them,’ shouted one brahmin. 

Balarama ignored them and concentrated his efforts on the rest. If they wished to endanger their own lives by facing their own god’s fury, that was their choice. He had to ensure that the larger number were brought within the umbrella of safety quickly, before the storm began taking its toll.

Soon, he had every man, woman, child, cow and dog gathered in a rough circle that extended over a considerable area. He understood now why Krishna had given that instruction. The sheer number of people and animals made them a substantial mass. Even Mount Govardhan was not infinite in size. The mountain would just about provide this large gathering with sufficient overhead shelter. If they were spread out farther apart, they would be subjected to the rage of Indra. 

He heard shouts of wonderment and joy. Turning, he saw Krishna walking slowly in their direction. His brother carried the entire mountain upon the palm of one hand. 

‘Look at the ground,’ Radha shouted above the scream of the wind. 

Balarama looked. With such an epic weight upon his hand, Krishna ought to have sunk deep into the ground. But he appeared to be walking normally, leaving only the normal footprints that any young boy would leave on such a surface. Others noticed this phenomenon and pointed it out to each other as well, marvelling at this new evidence of Krishna’s divinity.  

‘It is Bhoodevi’s blessing,’ Balarama said to himself. ‘She is supporting Krishna and aiding her children.’

As they watched, Krishna carried the mountain to where they were huddled. 

When he reached the place he had chosen, he stopped. 

Everyone clustered around him, except for the Indra brahmins who were adamant in their refusal to be sheltered in the same space as low castes. Balarama saw Gargamuni attempting to appeal to their common sense and humanity but they would not be deterred. He watched as they deliberately stepped away from the shelter of the mountain held up by Krishna, bodies shuddering as they were buffetted by the powerful screaming winds and tearing rain. 

He turned his attention to Krishna.

As he watched, Krishna hefted the mountain on the palm of his hand, the way Balarama himself liked to heft his plough, then lifted it upon a single finger, the smallest finger of his left hand. 

He held it up with only a minor trace of effort—only a faint semblance of a smile twitching his left cheek. 

He held it that way, taking up a position. 

Then, with his free hand, he removed his flute from his waistband and put it to his lips. A gentle melody began to waft forth from his flute, audible even despite the torrent of the storm. 

Here, within the shelter of Mount Govardhan, Krishna tended his flock.

27

There
was little rest for the Vrishni and their Deliverer that year. 

The assaults by Kamsa’s assassins continued unabated. 

Another rakshasa named Pralamba—bearing no relation to Kamsa’s chief advisor of the same name—attempted boldly to attack Krishna in broad daylight and was despatched easily. 

Another snake beast named Vyoma attempted to swallow Nanda whole while on a pious trip to a nearby shrine. Nanda called to his son for help. Krishna arrived at once and tore the beast to pieces. 

Balarama finally had his chance to play hero when an asura named Baka attacked him from behind while returning home and attempted to pick him up bodily to throw him. Not expecting Balarama to weigh as much as he did, the asura was nonplussed when Krishna’s brother increased his weight to the point where the asura was suffocating beneath the unbearable burden. Descending to the ground, Balarama then roundly thrashed the villain and despatched him to the afterlife. 

There was another attempt by fire, apparently a perennial favorite when large populations were to be decimated, and once again Krishna thwarted the threat in exactly the same manner, by swallowing the fire whole and absorbing it into himself. If a method worked, there was no reason not to use it again after all. 

Eventually, the assassins and attacks slowed then ceased altogether. A brief period of respite followed, expanding eventually into a whole season of rest, then a year, then several years. 

Time passed. 

The Vrishni began to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, the gravest part of the danger had passed finally. Perhaps the Usurper would finally leave them in peace. 

Krishna knew better but said nothing. He made the most of the interval between bouts by spreading merriment and hope through his heart-melting smile and languorous flute-song. 

He also knew what none of them knew, that the worst still lay ahead. That the real battle was yet to begin. All this, after all, was merely a foretaste of the real war that lay ahead. The mother of all wars, a conflict so terrible, so awesome, that it would pit every living able-bodied civilized soldier against his fellow soldier, brother against brother, kin against kin, and would end only when the population of the civilized world was all but wiped out. 

He could say none of this to his people. Besides, it would do no good. This was not a coming storm that they could prepare for by taking shelter or securing hatches and fences and mending roofs. 

This was the end of the Yuga. And the cusp of the bloodiest, most violent age of all in human history. 

The Age of Kali. 

It would come no matter what they, or he, or anyone else did, or did not do. 

So he played his flute and danced the ras-garba with his fellow gopas and gopis and ate mangoes and swam in the lakes and ran through the fields, growing taller, broader, handsomer, as the weeks of peaceful respite turned to months, and the months into years, and the boy became a man, and the god became a mortal for just a short while. 

Between battles.

Before the war. 

Just for a breath’s breadth. 

A pause between past and future. 

And he played his lila. 

28

RADHA
laughed and splashed water on her fellow gopis. They screamed and laughed and splashed her back until the riverside resembled a waterfall with water and spray flying every which way. The gopis were in a boisterous mood this season; it had been a long time here in Vrindavan, in veritable exile. Idyllic as life was here, the awareness that they were perpetually under threat, a community hunted and condemned by the Usurper and his demoniac soldiers, had bred a stubborn fury within each one. They lived and worked and ate and slept happily enough, but beneath that veneer of normalcy there had begun to fester a sense of anger and frustration, a desire to throw off the yoke of oppression and live free. To go back to Vraj-bhoomi and walk the green grassy slopes of their homeland once again, to live free in Gokul, to travel, to meet their relatives and friends, to marry and love and procreate and proliferate. They were no different than a city under siege. All the water and food and supplies in the world could not make up for the lack of freedom. 

All this translated into great quantities of pent-up energy. This came out in the rough house play of Balarama and the other gopas during the sports and other play. And with the gopis, expected to be demure and girlishly well-behaved at all times, it exploded at times such as these, when they were on their own, away from public eyes, playing together in this secluded glen, bathing in the river. 

They splashed and screamed and ducked one another in the water until every last one of them was soaked through and through. Finally, Radha said, ‘We may as well put our vastra to dry and bathe properly.’

The others chorused their approvals. Discarding their garments, the gopis laid them out on rocks and low-hanging branches to dry in the late morning sun, while they went back to splash and frolic in the water. Even though it was late autumn, almost early winter, the day was unseasonably warm, and the river relatively cool, especially in the shade of the riverside trees. 

They had come here to the Kalindi river early that morning, to offer the ritual oblations to Devi Katyayani at the onset of the Hemanta season. They had already bathed once in the water at sunrise, then made an image of the goddess with sand. The effigy still stood on the riverbank, lovingly shaped and carved, adorned with scented flowers, garlands, offerings of agarbattis, mud diyas, fresh fruits and newly grown shoots, rice and numerous other offerings, some glinting gold, others of lesser monetary value but all equal in devotional worth. 

It was only after the prayers to the goddess, after eating the ritual food prepared for the occasion and sitting for a while, that their talk had turned to more playful matters, leading to a little mild splashing of water, which quickly escalated into the all-out battle of water that drenched them one and all. 

The gopis played for a while, as happy as gandharvas and apsaras and when they were tired, they lay in the water and talked about all manner of things. 

One favorite topic of discussion was the one and only Krishna of course. At some point, every single gopi mentioned him, always with a wistful look in her eye and a soft sigh. 

‘Katyayani Devi,’ one attractive gopi with a well-endowed form said aloud, clasping her palms together and addressing the effigy of the goddess on the rivershore. ‘Great Maya, maha-yogini, mistress of the universe, I pray thee make the son of Nanda and Yashoda mine in marriage.’ 

Giggling at first, the other gopis remarked that on such an auspicious day, it was said that the Devi actually granted the wishes of young unmarried girls such as they if such wishes were made with sincerity and devotion. 

After mulling on this for barely a moment, all the other gopis turned their attention to the goddess and began offering their own prayers. 

It took Radha only a moment to realize that their prayers were all the same: every last one of them was asking the Devi to grant them a husband. And the husband desired by every gopi was the same.

Her Krishna!

Radha began to grow jealous. It was one thing for all the gopis to joke about Krishna, flirt with him, and even make coy advances on occasion. But this was serious. To pray to the goddess on her sacred day, that too in this manner, standing unclad in the Devi’s Kalindi river, and ask for Krishna as their husband…it was too much!