Long ago, on a dark, stormy night, the god-child Krishna was born. Krishna's uncle planned to kill him just as he had killed his sister's other boys; he had been told one of his sister's sons would be his assassin.
To protect the child, Krishna's father carried him away to the village of Vrindavan, across the Yamuna River. There he walked to the home of a simple cowherd, a man named Nanda.
He found Nanda fast asleep beside his wife, Yasoda, who held in her arms the couple's newborn daughter. Careful not to wake them, he placed Krishna in Yasoda's arms and carried away the infant girl.
When Yasoda awoke, she looked at her child. Startled to find a boy, she shook her head. "I must have been exhausted last night," she said to Nanda. "I thought we had a girl, but see, he is a boy."
The parents looked down at the beautiful child. His skin was so dark that it appeared blue, and when Yasoda touched his cheek, his skin felt to her touch as soft as a monsoon cloud. His hair, shiny as night, glistened in rising sun. His eyes were like lotus petals, always sparkling. Laughter bubbled out of him. He was truly extraordinary.
In truth Krishna was the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the greatest of gods, but people thought him only a marvelous child whose skin happened to be blue. Once in a while Yasoda thought she glimpsed the truth about him. When one day she found him eating dirt, she ran to his side, scolded him, and opened his mouth to clean it. But when she looked inside, she saw not a child's tongue and teeth but the entire cosmos -- the stars and moon and planets. That was when she began to realize she was raising not a child but a gift from the gods.
Still, in many ways Krishna behaved like any other mischievous boy. With a gleam in his eye, he opened fences to let the cows roam free. He stole pots of food to feed to the monkeys. He sneaked into other villagers' homes and piled up their pillows, climbed on top of them and tangled up the women's jewelry. And always he was laughing.
Despite his antics, the gopis -- the herdsmen's wives and daughters -- fell under the spell of his charm. Yasoda cherished him. She saw that Krishna was able to teach others to love as he loved, and, too, she knew the music he played on his flute was magical. When Krishna played, people gave up their work, their sleep and their feuds to listen.
But like every mother, Yasoda sometimes reached the end of her patience. One morning she sat in the shed churning her milk to butter, but when she left for a few moments, Krishna sneaked in. He loved butter. He could not resist it, and so he picked up the pot and raced outside with it.
He climbed the branches of a kadamba tree and settled himself against the trunk. He began to scoop out and gobble up the butter, licking his fingers and sharing it with the chattering monkeys who clambered around him.
When Yasoda discovered her pot missing, she ran outside. Spying her son in the tree, butter dripping from his chin, she cried out angrily. "There you are!"
Krishna leaped to the ground and ran.
Yasoda gave chase. At last she caught him. She looked around, wondering what she could do to stop his pranks. When she noticed the big wooden grinding mortar that Nanda had left in the yard, she said, "Here, I shall tie you to this." She twirled a piece of rope around Krishna's ankle and began to tie him for safekeeping to the mortar.
Each time she tried to tie the rope, though, she discovered that it was too short, and no matter how many ropes she attached to the first, each time she came up short. After a while she was near tears. Sweat dripped from her forehead. The garland she wore upon her head dropped to the ground. And when Krishna saw how worn and frustrated his mother was, his heart swelled with compassion for her.
"Tie me up, Mother, it's all right," he said. When Yasoda tried once more, the rope was suddenly long enough.
Yasoda returned to her work, and Krishna sat for a while, but he grew bored. After some time he stood up and pulled against the mortar. He had the strength of gods, of course, and so he walked into the forest, pulling the mortar behind him.
When he passed between two arjuna trees, he neglected to notice how close to each other they were, and sure enough, the mortar got stuck between them.
Krishna stopped and looked behind him, but impatient to be moving on, he once again pulled, and with that tug, he yanked those trees straight up out of the ground. Their roots freed, the trees came crashing to the ground.
The villagers, hearing the commotion, came running, and when they saw the felled trees, they yelled at the boy. "You are ruining our forest," they said. But suddenly two men, shining like fire, stepped out of those trees.
The two men bowed to Krishna. "Thank you," they said.
The astonished crowd fell silent and stared, and one of the men explained: "The great sage Narada cursed us because we were too proud, and so he turned us into trees. But all these years have passed, and we have learned our lesson. You have freed us, and we will be eternally grateful. Now, if you will excuse us, we will be on our way. We will make a pilgrimage."
Yasoda, standing not far away, smiled when she heard these words. She had come to understand that her son, Krishna, would always reveal two sides. He was chaos, certainly, but more than that, he was a blessing, a gift to this world.
COPYRIGHT 2005 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
