KRISHNA CORIOLIS#4: Lord of Mathura (18 page)

What if the Devi heard their prayers? What if she granted them? Naturally, she could not make Krishna husband to them all. But what if she granted the wish of any one girl here? What if slender doe-eyed Chitralekha’s wish was granted? Or if homely looking but nicely plump Sudhasattwa were to have her prayer answered? Or buxom Balini? 

No. This was intolerable. She could not bear the thought of her Krishna marrying another woman. 

Fuming, she made her way to the edge of the water and reached for her clothes. She had left them on a rock within reach of the water’s edge so that she would not have to climb out unclad. Unlike some of these other hussies, she was not as bold about baring her body, even if this was a secluded glen where the gopis of Vrindavan were known to bathe and were therefore permitted their privacy. 

She felt the cool smooth surface of the rock and patted it, stretching out as far as her arm would reach. 

She could not feel her garments. 

She frowned and peered up the length of her arm. 

Her clothes were gone! 

She issued a sound of exasperation. 

It must be those monkeys. They could be very mischievous at times. 

She looked around the trees, trying to spot the tell-tale red eyes twinkling in the shadows, or the flashing white teeth. 

It took her a moment to realize that there were none in sight. 

No monkeys. 

And no clothes.

All their garments had vanished. Not just her own from the rock, but every single vastra belonging to every last gopi, left hanging from tree branches or laid out on stones to dry, had disappeared!

Radha screamed. 

29

At
the sound of Radha’s scream, all the gopis left off their prayers to the goddess and came to see what the matter was. 

‘Asuras!’ Radha cried. 

At the mention of the dreaded word, every gopi started screaming as well. Pandemonium ensued. Once again, there was much thrashing about and panic as the gopis looked about and splashed in the water, trying to decide where the demons might be and what to do next. It took several minutes before everyone realized that no danger was visible and that the only harm that had befallen them was the pilfering of their garments. 

‘Is that all?’ said one of them scornfully, ‘Radha, you would leap off a cliff to avoid a mosquito! I thought it was a real demon attacking. Like Aghasura. Or Kaliya!’

‘The monkeys must have taken our clothes,’ said another gopi. ‘They took Saraswati’s garments once when she was bathing, remember? Come on, everyone look in the trees, the rascals must be hiding there.’

Everyone began to look about for monkeys in the trees. 

It was Radha herself who spotted the familiar face peering down from a fork in a Kadamba tree. She gasped at first, unable to believe her eyes. Then slowly, a smile played across her pretty features and soon became a blush. 

‘I found the rascal,’ she said aloud.

The other gopis clustered around her. ‘Where are the monkeys?’ they asked. 

‘There,’ she said, pointing. ‘But it’s no monkey.’

They all looked where she pointed and saw the familiar face laughing from the Kadamba tree. 

‘Krishna!’ they exclaimed. ‘It’s Krishna!’

At once, the sound of cat-calls and cries broke out from across the grove. Other gopas appeared, leaving their hiding places to come forward. They stood with their hands on their hips, grinning boldly.

The gopis blushed and screamed in embarrassment, covering themselves with their hands. 

‘You took our clothes!’ they cried out. ‘Give them back!’

Balarama shrugged. ‘We had nothing to do with it. Krishna took them.’

Everyone turned to look at Krishna. He grinned, dangling Radha’s bright yellow upper garment. Radha blushed even deeper. 

‘They’re telling the truth, dear gopis,’ Krishna cried out. ‘I have your garments! Don’t you want them back?’

‘YES!’ the gopis cried. ‘Please return them.’

‘Of course,’ Krishna said with mock-seriousness. ‘They’re of no use to me. You may have them all back at once.’

The gopis cried out with relief, staying low in the water to avoid being seen by the boys. 

‘But you must come and take them from me, one by one,’ Krishna said. 

The gopis looked at one another, round-eyed. Radha lowered her eyes, blushing redder than a gulmohur flower in full blossom. 

‘Well, that is the only way you will get your clothes back,’ Krishna said. ‘By coming to me one by one and taking them from my hand.’

The gopis were struck dumb. None knew what to say. 

It was Radha who spoke. 

‘Don’t misbehave, Krishna,’ she said, her cheeks still flaming red. ‘Give us back our clothes. Otherwise, we will tell Nanda-Maharaja.’

Krishna raised his eyebrows. ‘Tell him what exactly? That you girls came to offer oblations to the goddess but decided to take off your clothes and prance around like gandharvas and apsaras in the water?’

Radha stared at Krishna. She looked at the other gopis. Krishna was right. It was they who had misbehaved, in a manner of speaking. As young unwed girls, it was not becoming for them to have frolicked unclothed in the river in this way. 

‘We are sorry for our misbehavior,’ she said, ‘but—.’

‘But I am not sorry for my behavior!’ Krishna cried out. ‘In fact, I am only trying to teach you girls a lesson! The Devi would be very displeased if she saw you spent more time and energy in enjoying yourselves than in performing the rites to honor her. That is why Balarama, the other gopas and I came to see if all was well with you. It was Nanda-Maharaja himself who sent us, concerned for your welfare.’

All the girls looked around uneasily. What Krishna said was quite true: this was the Devi’s sacred day. They had passed much more time and energy in frolicking after the rituals and had lost all track of time. 

‘And after all,’ Krishna went on in a gently chiding tone, ‘Were you not praying to the goddess to bring me to you?’

‘They were,’ said one of the gopas, ‘Every last one was praying to the Devi to make you her husband!’

Now all the gopis blushed, embarrassed at being found out. But none denied the charge, for it was true. 

Radha was silent. She did not know what else to say. 

‘I will return your clothes,’ Krishna said. ‘All you have to do is walk up here, one by one, and claim them from me. That way, we may find out which one’s prayers to the goddess will be answered.’ He paused and looked at each one of the girls in turn, immersed up to their necks in water. ‘You do want to know which one of you will have her wish come true, do you not?’

The gopis stared at him transfixed. 

At once, their entire attitude changed. 

They began moving towards the shore, eager to come to Krishna and learn whether what he said was true. Indeed, none of them doubted that he spoke the truth, for Krishna never lied. Rather, they were eager to know the answer to the riddle he spoke of: who among them would be the lucky girl chosen by the Devi to be Krishna’s paramour? 

But at the edge of the shore, they hesitated. For while all desired Krishna enough to be willing to walk unclad all the way to where he sat on the Kadamba tree, they had no wish to be seen by the other gopas in this state of undress. 

‘Krishna,’ they cried out plaintively, ‘ask the other boys to go away from here. We cannot step out before them.’

‘Why not?’ Krishna asked. ‘They have already been watching you for a while.’

The gopis blushed. ‘Watching us?’

‘Yes,’ Krishna said. ‘We came here together, looking for you. We saw you frolicking in the water, then praying to the goddess for a suitable husband. At that time, you were all too absorbed to even notice us. So I told the boys I would teach you a lesson in modesty by stealing your clothes. After all, if you were willing to bathe without your clothes for the whole world to see, then what need did you have of them anyway!’

‘We are sorry for being so shameless,’ they said. ‘We admit it was very wrong of us. But we cannot step out in front of all the boys of the village!’

‘Yes, you can,’ Krishna said, ‘if you wish to have your clothes back. It is the only way.’ His eyes twinkled with mischief. 

The gopis had no choice. The day had suddenly turned cool and after all this time in the water, they were beginning to feel a chill. The sky had become overcast in the past hour and as they were talking a gentle wind began to blow from the north, making them shiver. They would catch cold if they did not exit the water and wear their clothes soon. 

Left with no alternative, the gopis did as Krishna asked. 

One by one, they came out of the water, covering themselves with both hands as best as they could, and walked up to the foot of the Kadamba tree where Krishna sat on the fork, his feet dangling. 

Krishna handed each girl her garments. To take the garments, the girls had to raise their hands. As each girl took her clothes from Krishna, she bent forward and pressed her forehead against his dangling feet, sending up a prayer again to the goddess to grant her wish and make Krishna her mate for life. 

Then she took the bundle of clothes and ran blushing into the woods, to dress herself. 

One by one, each gopi came to Krishna, accepted her clothes, thanked him and touched his feet, and dressed herself. 

Radha was the last to emerge from the water. She took her clothes from Krishna without comment. But then, instead of touching his feet as the others had done, she looked up at him and said, 

‘Even the Devi cannot answer the prayers of every gopi in Vrindavan. Only one of us can find the husband she desires. Whom shall it be?’

Krishna looked down at Radha’s beautiful face, even lovelier than usual after bathing in the river, her hair damp and open and spread out upon her bare shoulders, her complexion invigorated by the cool water and bracing wind. 

‘The Devi is Arya, purity personified, and therefore goddess of chaste young girls. She grants every unmarried girl’s wish. Each gopi desired to be able to make me her husband. Today, by touching my feet while in that state of undress, each of you is no less than a wife to a husband. Therefore your wishes have indeed been granted by the Devi Katyayani. All of you have enjoyed touching me in a wifely manner. And as such, each one of you shall enjoy the lingering pleasure of my touch to the end of your days upon this earth. If this is not husbandry, what is it?’

Radha had no answer. She stared up silently at her beloved one. Then, doing as her fellow gopis had done, she bent her head and touched her forehead to Krishna’s feet, clasping Achyuta’s feet with her hands as well. 

In addition, she kissed those feet of Damodaran with affection, before clasping her garments to herself and walking away with dignity and pride. 

30

KAMSA
returned to Mathura in a red rage. 

He descended from Hathi-Yodha with a single leap. Ignoring the nubile young women waiting with the ritual ceremonial greeting thalis and flower garlands he stormed up the palace steps and strode to his throne room. The sabha was in session. 

‘Get out!’ he roared. 

The ministers and representatives left as quickly as their feet would carry them. 

‘Shut the doors and don’t let anyone in,’ he said to his serving maids. ‘And fetch me soma. Quickly!’

He was still drinking soma several hours later when a very nervous aide prostrated himself before the throne of Mathura. Kamsa threw the half-consumed goblet at the man’s head, opening a cut on his temple that spilled blood on the marble floor. ‘Fool! I said I was not to be disturbed.’

‘Sire, it is your father-in-law,’ the man blurted, certain his life would be ended any moment. He ignored the blood streaming from the cut on his forehead. ‘He is coming to see you.’

Before Kamsa could throw something more lethal at the man, the great doors reopened and Jarasandha strode in, accompanied by his entourage of Hijra bodyguards and closest champions. 

‘Son,’ Jarasandha said shortly, dispensing with the usual formalities. ‘You took your time returning to Mathura. I arrived days before you did.’

‘I took a detour,’ Kamsa said. ‘I had some business to take care of.’

Jarasandha looked at him closely. It was evident the Magadhan expected to be told what that business was but when Kamsa offered no further explanation, he shrugged and gestured at the fallen goblet and splashed soma stain on the marble floor. ‘I see you are not in the best of moods.’

Kamsa looked at him from beneath heavy lids, slumped back in his throne, chin resting on his chest. ‘You know why.’

Jarasandha nodded, climbing the rest of the way up the royal dais. He took the seat near Kamsa which was intended for a preceptor. ‘The Deliverer has survived all your attempts and all our assassins have failed.’

‘Yes,’ Kamsa snarled. ‘Even our appeal to Lord Indra was a failure.’

‘In point of fact, our appeal was a success. Lord Indra believed the message we sent him, cleverly passed on through Narada-muni, that Krishna was attempting to convert his brahmins into Vaishnavites and raising a community of low castes in order to drive out the Indra-worshippers. Indra reacted just as we hoped. He attacked Vrindavan with great storm and fury. But the Deliverer protected his people yet again.’